


Return of the Grievous Angel

by iamocelost



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: David Bowie and Elton John galore, F/M, Historical Inaccuracies, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Ground Zeroes, Post-Peace Walker, Slow Burn, Spy Stuff, Suicidal Thoughts, Torture, also some cowboy music, but Kojima started it, communist stuff, mercenary stuff, there will be mixed tapes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-03-25 22:03:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13843935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamocelost/pseuds/iamocelost
Summary: Cipher had kidnapped her, experimented on her, threatened her family, destroyed her future, and hunted her to the ground. She and Kaz were going to make them pay.Or, Ocelost decided to write an OC *and* a story about what Ocelot and Kaz were doing while Snake was in a coma while also creating a Cipher mini-boss, mostly as an excuse to research things like brain chemistry, the music of the late 70s and early 80s, and when mundane items like menstrual cups were invented.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I've debated a long time about posting this because if you happen to have read my other work "Pulling Threads" then this OC is going to look a little familiar. Truth be told, I've been obsessed with this particular super-power since I read Orson Scott Card's Homecoming Saga, so you can blame him, not me. Also, I get nerdier about writing MGS fics than anything else, so I just kinda wanted to? And really, now you can write whatever weird stuff you want and just say, "Parasites did it." Parasites are the new midichlorians.
> 
> Anyway, after writing a scene that I really love and want to inflict upon the rest of the world, I decided to compromise with myself: I'll start posting and if people don't seem into it, I'll scrap it (AKA keep working on it without ever breathing another word to anyone about it) and rewrite that one scene as a one-shot.

Alligator was yelling in his ear as soon as he was out of the cockpit. “Boss, someone showed up while you and Master Miller were gone. Says his name is Ocelot.”

Snake looked at Alligator sharply, then began marching away from the still-running helicopter. “How did he get here?” he asked.

Alligator ran a couple of steps to keep up with Snake’s longer stride. “Flew a chopper in. He had a woman in the back, unconscious, naked except for a blanket. I sent her to medical and took him to Interrogation Room B. A couple of my men are watching him now.” He looked up at the Boss for approval.

Snake nodded. “I want a report from medical ASAP. I’ll be in Room B. Send Miller.”

Alligator scurried off and Snake headed directly for the security platform, scowling. It wasn’t like Mother Base was a secret -- they were a business after all -- but the fact that one of Zero’s agents was already paying a visit was unsettling. Especially since it was Revolver Ocelot.

The operative in question was seated at the table in Room B, with Puma and Plover watching through the one-way mirror in the observation room. They nodded to him as he entered. “Has he said anything?” Snake asked.

“He asked to speak to you, and he asked for something to drink,” said Plover.

“Take him some water in a paper cup,” Snake ordered, and she moved toward the door. “Leave any guns or knives here,” he added, and Plover hesitated before propping her rifle against the wall and placing a handgun and a knife on the table at the back of the room.

Ocelot waited patiently, eyes glancing around casually. He was bulkier than the last time Snake had seen him, but there was still something fundamentally cat-like about his posture. He had a peppering of hair over his cheeks and chin that suggested he’d been in the field a few days. When Plover came in with the water, he looked her up and down and smirked as he thanked her. “Big Boss back yet?” he drawled, but he was unfazed when Plover exited without a word.

Puma’s radio suddenly crackled, and Alligator’s voice filled the room. “Puma, you with Boss?”

Puma passed the radio to Snake as Plover came back in and began re-equipping herself. “I’m here,” he said.

“I’ve got Whale here with the medical report,” said Alligator, then Whale’s voice came over the speaker. He wasted no time. “White female, mid-twenties, I’d guess. Spoke English when she started to come to, American accent. One broken rib, two others bruised, small lacerations and bruises on her arms and legs. The skin on her wrists and ankles is abraded. She also has a fresh wound on her head and I’d say a mild concussion as well. No sign of sexual trauma. No notable scars. My guess? Civilian who got worked over a little. She’s definitely dehydrated, but other than that, she got off easy.”

As Whale rattled off his report, Kaz came in and stood at the observation window. Snake couldn’t see his face, but he could tell from Kaz’s stance that he was upset. Hell, Snake was too; coming back from their first date to find a crisis that required his personal attention when all he really wanted to do was push Kaz into his bed…

He pushed the thought from his mind. “What’s she said?” he asked Whale.

“Not much. She fought us a little, called for help. I decided to sedate her before she could hurt herself.”

Snake grunted. “Let me know when she wakes up.”

“Sure thing, Boss. Whale out.”

Snake handed Puma his radio, then ordered the two guards to wait outside the room. Only after the door was securely shut did he reach out and tentatively touch Kaz’s shoulder. The younger man looked up at him with a small grin. “This wasn’t how I imagined our first date ending,” he said.

Snake grimaced. “Maybe I can make it up to you later.”

Kaz reached up to brush a fingertip along Snake’s jaw. “I’ll bet you can.” Then his face settled into a more serious expression. “So this is Ocelot.”

Snake dropped his hand from Kaz’s shoulder and focused again on the man on the other side of the glass. “Yeah.”

“I always imagined he’d look more...I dunno, dangerous?”

“You should see him when he has his damn six-shooters.”

“Guns will not make those ears stick out any less.” Kaz turned suddenly and placed his hand on Snake’s cheek. “He’s the one who did this to you,” he said, running his thumb beside Snake’s empty eye socket.

“Yeah.” Snake shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t wanted to talk about what happened in ‘64, not right now.

“Then maybe it’s time for a little payback,” Kaz continued, and Snake could almost see the malicious gleam behind those aviators. He frowned. “It’s....more complicated than that, Kaz…” he said slowly.

Kaz shrugged and stepped away. “You’re in charge, Boss.”

Snake looked at Kaz, confused by his mood swings, but rather than ask, he just shook his head slightly. Deciding he would deal with Kaz after he figured out why the hell Ocelot was here, he unbuckled the belt with his sidearm and his survival knife. “Here,” he said, pushing the gear at Kaz, “will you hold this for me?”

“What am I, your butler?” snarked Kaz, but he tucked the package under his arm. Then, in a softer tone, “You sure going in there naked is the best idea?”

“Ocelot’s never been my match at CQC,” answered Snake, “but throw a gun in the mix?” He rolled his neck from side to side, feeling a pleasant burn from their earlier activities. “Things could get a little dicey.” He started to the door. “I’ll send Puma and Plover back in.”

Kaz grunted in reply.

Puma and Plover were standing at attention in the hall. Snake directed them back into the observation room with Kaz, took three deep breaths to steady himself, and pushed his way into the interrogation room.

Ocelot grinned immediately at his entrance. “There you are, Snake,” he said. “I was beginning to worry about you. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important.”

Snake watched Ocelot’s nostrils flare and inwardly cursed that he hadn’t had time for a shower. If anyone would smell sex on him, it would be Ocelot.

He sat down across the table from the other man. “What fresh hell have you brought to my doorstep, Ocelot?” he growled.

“I’ve brought you an asset,” Ocelot said gregariously. “That girl could do wonders for your operation here.”

Snake snorted. “Right, neither she nor you are going to be reporting directly back to Zero, or whoever it is you’re working for now.”

“Still Zero, ostensibly,” said Ocelot, waving his hand as though it didn’t matter, “but she hates the Major about as much as you do.”

“Ostensibly?” Snake said, not wanting Ocelot to slide them onto another subject just yet.

“We’ve had a difference of opinions,” answered Ocelot. “Zero just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Somebody paying you more?”

Ocelot shrugged. “Technically, I’m still on the GRU’s payroll, but I have been considering going freelance.”

“What’s this falling out all about then?”

Ocelot sighed and look up at the ceiling dramatically. “I didn’t come here for a heart-to-heart, Snake.”

“Then why are you here?” Snake said with a hint of impatience. “And who’s the girl?”

Ocelot took a drink from his cup of water before saying, “Have you heard of the Orbweaver Project?”

“It’s not another metal gear, is it?” 

Ocelot smirked. “No, very organic. A few years back, Zero began funding a neurobiologist who believed there was a way to amplify human empathic response into telepathy through chemical and hormonal manipulation. Went by the name Dr. Friend.”

Snake barked a laugh. “Dr. Friend?”

“Says the man who’s known as Naked Snake to his friends and Big Boss to everyone else.”

“Says the man who used to meow to signal ambushes.”

Ocelot grinned. “Those were the good old days, weren’t they?” He toyed with his now-empty paper cup. “Can I get some more water?” he asked. “I’m really parched.”

Snake eyed him for a moment, wondering what his game was. Beneath his cocky persona, Ocelot looked like Snake did after a particularly long mission: stubble all over, disheveled hair, a faint bruise right above his collar bone. “Give me your hand,” Snake ordered, reaching across the table. Ocelot complied without hesitation, and Snake pinched the skin on the back of his wrist, watching how long it stayed tented. The man was definitely dehydrated, so Snake picked up his cup and walked out the door. 

Kaz met him in the hall, where he passed off the cup to one of the brig’s regular guards to be refilled. “You heard of Orbweaver?” he asked his XO.

Kaz frowned. “I’ve heard the name, a little chatter about some intel ops, but nothing concrete. I’ve got the intel team on it now.” He worried at his lip. “Why do you think he’s claiming to want to leave Zero?”

Snake shrugged. “Dunno yet. His allegiances have always been...complicated. Plover!” The woman stuck her head out the observation room door. “What did he come in with?”

“Two revolvers, a pistol of Soviet make, four knives, and one rocket launcher,” she answered smartly.

Snake grunted. “He  _ looks _ like he came in from the field.”

Kaz smirked, but his voice sounded edgy when he said, “Maybe he just wanted to talk about the good old days.”

Snake looked over Kaz’s face; he couldn’t tell if his second was really angry, but now wasn’t the time to find out. He took the cup from the guard who had been waiting at his elbow and said to Kaz, “Get a medic with IV fluids on standby.” He didn’t wait for a reply.

Ocelot drank greedily for a moment, then seemed to catch himself and delicately set the cup on the table with half its contents remaining.

“Dr. Friend?” Snake prompted.

“Dr. Friend, yes,” continued Ocelot. “He made a professional contact, a psychologist who was also studying the relationship between empathy and telepathy. The guy was a stooge; he did the human subject work, recruiting and evaluated participants from the college he worked at, then sent reports on his findings to Friend, who was waiting to snatch up anyone who showed remarkably strong empathic response. When someone did, Zero’s men grabbed her, and Friend slowly adjusted her brain chemistry until he achieved a success of a sort.”

“Of a sort?” Snake asked.

Ocelot took another drink. “Orbweaver isn’t telepathic, per se. She can’t read your thoughts. She can see how you feel about other people, no matter how near or how far those people may be. It can take a while for her to sort through all the information, to really put her finger on the relationship between two people, especially if they aren’t in proximity, but when it comes to mole-hunting or figuring out who exactly is in charge of an operation, she’s a dream.”

Snake leaned back in his chair. “And she’s in our med bay.”

Ocelot tipped his cup in Snake’s direction before swallowing the rest of the contents. “Friend sent her out for a mission in the Afghani desert. They got ambushed by some locals working for the Soviets. The whole combat team either went down in the fight or were executed, including her handler, Poe. That was two weeks ago. The Soviets didn’t know what they had, just that the Americans seemed to want her. They proposed a trade, Zero accepted; the two groups were supposed to meet night after tomorrow.”

“And you got there first,” finished Snake. “Why? A bargaining chip in your break with Zero?”

Ocelot slumped a bit and played with his cup. “She never had a choice,” he said after a pause, sounding a little surly. “Her life was set on an entirely different path and they just snatched her up and made her a tool.”

“Ocelot,” said Snake after a moment’s silence, “I don’t know what kind of operation you think I’m running here, but about half this base is people I kidnapped in the field.”

“But they were soldiers,” Ocelot said fervently, looking Snake right in the eye. “They chose this life even if they didn’t choose you. She chose something different. They had no right.” His voice grew softer and his eyes lowered, but he was no less intense. “They have no right to anyone, before they’re soldiers or after they’re dead.”

Snake looked at the young man in front of him and saw, for once, an Ocelot that looked completely defeated. His body sagged in his chair and his right hand shook, just a hair. “So Peace Walker was the last straw?” Snake asked.

Ocelot chuckled drily. “I guess so,” he replied, pushing a hand through his pale hair, “but I’m not ready to burn all my bridges yet.”

“And you want it to look like I took Orbweaver from the Soviets?”

Ocelot nodded. “Like I said, she could be an asset. She’ll trust you, know you have as many reasons to hate Zero as she does. She might even work for you.” Ocelot smirked again. “Plus I’d owe you a couple of favors.”

“A couple?”

“I could use a lift to Vietnam where I’m supposed to be right now.”

Snake sighed as he pushed back from the table. “I’m gonna have a medic come in and get an IV going.” He stood up and walked toward the door. “Then we’ll talk about your trip to Vietnam.”

The medic in question -- Snake thought it was Ibex -- was waiting in the hall, and Snake nodded him into the interrogation room. Back on the other side of the one-way glass, Kaz was speaking quietly in a radio, probably Puma’s again. Snake gestured Puma and Plover outside again before pulling his belt from Kaz’s shoulder.

“That’s all we’ve been able to find, Master Miller,” a woman’s voice said through the radio. 

“Alright,” Kaz sighed. “Miller out.” He turned to Snake. “Intel said that they’d first heard whispers of Orbweaver about six months ago, a few rumors that couldn’t be substantiated. The most widely repeated story is that Orbweaver was responsible for flushing the mole out of Camp Melancholy.”

“Camp Melancholy?” Snake said as he finished fastening his belt. “CIA site in the Andes, right?”

“Right.” Kaz reached under his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. “It’s just enough for it to sound like Ocelot’s giving us real intel…”

“...but not enough for it to clearly be a set-up,” concluded Snake. He turned to watch Ibex adjust the fluid bag that was now attached to Ocelot’s arm. “What do you think, Kaz?”

Kaz moved beside him. “Honestly, I’d like to punch him until he’d never smirk again, then push him over the side of Mother Base.”

Snake chuckled. “He has that effect on people.”

There was a couple seconds of silence, then Kaz said, “It’s your call, Boss. There are things about this that I don’t understand. Like why he’s so mad about Peace Walker.”

“He respected the Boss as much as I did,” Snake said, and he was surprised by how easily the past tense came to him. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “We don’t have any reason to disbelieve him. Prep a chopper and a combat unit and get him on a plane to Asia before he sees any more of the base.”

“And Orbweaver?” Kaz scowled. “How do we know she’s not a plant?”

Snake shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out the old-fashioned way. We’ll wait and see who shows up on our doorstep next.” He shifted his body toward Kaz, impulsively grabbing the other man’s hand. “You get Ocelot out of our hair, and I’m gonna see what what I can get out of the girl. But after that,” he said huskily, “I want to hear you moan my name again before the night’s over.”

A flush spread across Kaz’s face, but his voice was light and steady when he replied. “You’d better be ready to work for it.”

 

+++++

 

She opened her eyes, feeling like she was being jerked out of a dream, but a quick glance around the room didn’t reveal anything that might have woken her. It was quiet except for a dull buzz from the florescent lights overhead and the light  _ tap tap tap _ of the IV drip. This wasn’t her usual medical room, so maybe they weren’t back at Friend’s lab yet. Or maybe Friend hadn’t gotten her back at all…

She squashed the thought fiercely. Her memories of the past few days were hazy, but she knew that Ocelot had been there, and Ocelot meant Friend.

The restraints on her wrists were confusing, though. They hadn’t bothered with physical restraints from a while. But here she was, arms bound to either side of a hospital bed. 

The next thing she noticed was that the ever-present pain in her side was diminished to a dull ache when she breathed, but it was now joined by a dull ache in her head. A vague recollection of gunfire and a feeling a falling; had Ocelot dropped her on her head? Maybe they had given her a painkiller. It would explain why all her thoughts seemed to float by like leaves on the wind…

The door swung open, causing a spike in her headache. Three men entered, wearing identical fatigues and balaclavas over their faces. One sat without ceremony in the plain chair at the foot of her bed. The other two, holding rifles across their bodies, stood against the wall behind him.

“I’m Snake,” said the seated man in a low, gravelly voice. “I’m Big Boss around here. What’s your name?”

She looked at him, confused and panicked because this was was obviously not the boss here; the man standing at his right shoulder was surrounded by so many sparks of devotion that it was hard to look at him. Even the seated man, the supposed boss, adored him.

Another one of Friend’s tests, then? She locked eyes with the shining man and said nothing.

“The medics said you speak English,” the man who called himself Snake continued. “No use pretending you don’t understand me. Who are you?”

She glanced to the seated man, then back to the shining man. What could the test be? If it was just about recognizing who was in charge, that was too easy. Was this about finding out how long it would take her to talk? Her breath caught in her throat -- were they going to torture her?

She began searching the shining man’s lines for a hint of Friend. If she could figure out what their relationship was, she might be able to figure out the right answer to this test.

The seated man leaned back in his chair. “Alright, fair enough. A name can be dangerous information. What do you remember about how you got here?”

The shining man had too many threads; trying to find the one that might take her to Friend was making her head pound. She spotted a line to Ocelot, a thick rope that writhed with tension and annoyance. She started looking at the other main lines, hoping they would lend a clue.

Meanwhile, the seated man kept talking. “This doesn’t have to be like it was with the KGB. I have no desire to break any more of your ribs. But you need to start talking.”

The thickest line was to someone he thought of as the Boss and it was so knotted that her stomach roiled. There was another line to someone named Kaz -- friend? Lover? Didn’t matter; it got her nowhere. Another line...to Zero. Zero was in everybody -- Ocelot, Friend, Poe -- so this wasn’t surprising. Another complicated strand, no point in trying to unknot it, because Friend should be somewhere around here…

Suddenly, a balaclava-covered face was the only thing in her line of sight; the seated man was now looming over her. “I know Stingray is a handsome fellow,” he said in that same low tone, “but I can’t help feeling a little jealous when all you want to do is stare at him instead of answering my questions.” He glared at her, so carefully not quite touching her. She looked into his eyes, then her vision darted compulsively back to the shining man when a little tremor of hopeful preening ran to him from the man in front of her. 

“Snake” immediately slammed a fist into the wall above her head. She jumped, and the pain in her ribs flared up brightly, forcing a cry out of her as she dragged her eyes back to the man in front of her. A little shift in the line to the other guard, the unshiny one. He disapproved of “Snake’s” actions. Instead of letting her eyes dart around anymore, provoking further wrath from this so-called Big Boss, she squeezed them shut and twisted her face away from him.

“Perhaps you’re still woozy from the sedative they gave you,” he said. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.” His voice began to move away. “But when I come back, you should be ready to talk.”

She heard the door open and boots tramping out before it closed. The only sounds for a while was her ragged, pained breathing accompanied by the whine from the light. Then door opened again and someone came in to mess with her IV, but she didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t want to see any more.


	2. Chapter 2

Snake had done his best not to look like he was slinking away from Kaz’s office in the wee hours of the morning. Late night conferences between MSF’s two commanders weren’t uncommon, but leaving Kaz naked, sweaty, and exhausted was. Snake himself had collapsed on his cot, muscles still trembling a little, as one might expect. Kaz was… very good.

He slept surprisingly deeply, but still woke as the sky was beginning to lighten. A shower was the first order of business -- it wouldn’t do to go around smelling like Kaz all day -- then he made his way to the mess hall with the breakfast team. He nursed the cup of coffee Iguana, the mess chief for the shift, brought him while the soldiers prepared eggs, pintos, fruit, and tortillas, listening to their chatter. Morale sounded good; the demise of Peace Walker had spirits high, and the combat units MSF deployed throughout Central and South America were returning with high success and low casualty rates. Snake smiled into his mug; it was easy to feel invincible in a kitchen.

Iguana brought him a plate, and the rest of the breakfast team settled around him with their own food. Being on the breakfast team had two perks: you got to eat before anyone else, and you had a chance to eat with the Boss. Snake had started coming down here early just to get a bite before heading out to the field, but it had become a way of making a very undesirable job more glamorous.

After breakfast, Snake went back to his room where a stack of paperwork waiting on his desk, performance reviews for the combat units. He sighed, sat down, and lit a cigar before pulling the first folder toward him. For the next hour, he read reports and wrote notes for squad leaders regarding recommended training. It was framed as recommendations, but he knew that each squad leader would follow his instructions to a tee.

At 0800, he put down his pen and snuffed out his cigar and made his way to the med bay where he had instructed Whale and Stingray to meet him the night before. In the storage closet where they had stashed their identical gear, Stingray was waiting stoically, balaclava in hand, while Whale pulled on his boots. Snake began undressing and said, “How is she?”

“She slept on and off through the night,” answered Whale. “Gecko offered her some food, but she ignored her. She hasn’t said a word.”

“And Gecko’s been the only one in there?”

“Yeah, Boss, just like you said. We left the restraints on her too.”

Snake nodded and pulled the black shirt over his head. “You ready to reprise your Big Boss impression?” he asked Stingray.

Stingray’s face remained impassive. “What’s the plan this time, Boss?”

“Same as before. Push her for information, who she is, where she came from, that kind of thing.”

“Same rules as last time?” Stingray had been a quick study when Snake had instructed him in the fine art of interrogation, appreciating the need for slow escalation in the intensity of the stimuli. He would assign himself rules for a session, allowing himself to only touch the subject’s feet, for instance, or to only speak in a quiet voice.

Snake considered his reply. “You can use force, but not pain,” he answered. “I want to see how she responds to the pressure without actually doing any damage. Any other questions?” Both men shook their heads. “Alright then,” said Snake as his pulled on his mask, the others following suit. Neither Stingray nor Whale looked especially like Snake, but the three men shared a similar build, and in matching uniforms with their faces covered, they were close enough to identical for Snake’s purposes. 

It didn’t faze Orbweaver; as soon as they entered the room, her eyes were locked on him. Stingray wasted no time, immediately grabbing the woman’s chin and jerking it around to face him. “Stingray will be very disappointed,” he said in a low, dangerous voice, “when he hears you’ve been making eyes as Tarantula. And I will be very disappointed if your tongue isn’t a little looser.”

Snake hadn’t told Whale or Stingray that this whole charade was about determining if Orbweaver had the skills Ocelot claimed she did, only that he wanted her to stay unsure about how many Mother Base staff she might be meeting. The misinformation was a good touch on Stingray’s part. He began with the same questions as before, not raising his voice but staying very close to the woman, looming over her and forcing her to face him when she tried to look away. She kept her eyes squinted tightly, pulling back as far as she could from his touch, which wasn’t very far considering her wrists were still secured to the sides of the bed. When she did open her eyes, they were locked on Snake.

But Stingray gave no sign of impatience, one thing that made him such a good interrogator. As she looked at Snake once more, he carefully wrapped a hand on either side of her face to force himself into her line of vision. In the same low level voice, he said, “Maybe you cannot tell me your name. Maybe you don’t remember. But you can tell me what you remember about how you got here.” He ran a thumb down her lips and pushed it into her mouth. “I can feel for myself you have a tongue.” He let her go, and planting his hands on the side of the bed, leaned forward expectantly, “So talk.”

Orbweaver held his gaze for a long moment, lips parted as she took a shuddering breath. Then her mouth set in a grim line, and her eyes came back to Snake. 

Stingray promptly threw the chair that was still beside the bed across the room, breaking it on the opposite wall. A plastic canteen followed, then the woman’s IV drip, clattering to the floor and pulling out of her arm, pulling a sharp cry from her. Stingray ignored it, jerked the sheet that was covering her off the bed, leaving her with only the thin hospital gown. He wrapped one of his large hands around her throat, applying just enough pressure to scare but not enough to bruise, though Snake could feel the unhappiness rolling off Whale at this situation.

“This is your last chance to say something,” Stingray snarled.

At first the woman was silent apart from labored breathing. Then, still looking at Snake, she whispered, “Please. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Alright, Stingray,” Snake said, and the soldier immediately let go of the woman and stepped back. “Clean up this mess.”

Whale went to the metal stand for the fluids bag and righted it while Stingray picked up the pieces of the chair and moved to the door. “Bring me a new chair,” Snake told him as he exited.

“I’m going to put your IV back in,” Whale was saying to the woman, who only looked relieved by the sudden change in the men’s behavior.

“Take off the restraints while you’re at it,” added Snake. He pulled the balaclava over his head and scratched furiously at his beard. 

Orbweaver’s wrists were freed and her IV was back in place by the time Stingray returned with an undamaged chair. Whale looked at Snake expectantly, and Snake glanced at the woman. “You got any of that applesauce left?”

“Coming right up, Boss,” Whale answered as he ducked out of the room with Stingray.

Snake set the chair a few feet away from the bed and sat down. Orbweaver seemed content to let him be the one to break the silence. Her gaze on him wasn’t entirely steady; every now and again her eyes would jump away from him before coming back, and not just to the door either. She seemed to be searching in all directions.

After a minute, Whale popped back in with two cartons of applesauce and two plastic spoons. “Anything else, Boss?” he asked, but Snake waved him away before setting one carton and spoon on the bed, in easy reach for the woman. As he peeled the aluminum cover off his own cup, he said, “I’m Snake. I’m Big Boss.”

“I know,” she answered and gingerly reached for the applesauce.

“How did you know?” He put a spoonful in his mouth, let himself enjoy the sweetness.

She snorted, opening her own carton. “If you knew to set up this ‘elaborate’ ruse” -- he could hear the scare quotes in her tone -- “then you already know the answer to that.”

Snake grunted in assent. “What’s your name?”

“Orbweaver.” She put a tentative spoonful in her mouth and Snake remembered how long it had been since she’d eaten.

“Your real name, from before Orbweaver.” She looked at him blankly. “My name is John,” he offered.

She considered for a moment, then said, “Stephanie.” She took another bite of the applesauce. “Where are we?”

“This is the Mother Base of MSF.”

“MSF?”

“Militaires sans Frontieres. Mercenaries.”

“Not Zero.”

Snake didn’t answer her; it hadn’t been a question.

For a minute, they ate in silence, then she asked, “Did you take me from Ocelot?”

“Ocelot brought you here,” he replied. “Said he was thinking of leaving Zero but wasn’t ready to burn his bridges. He wanted it to look like we lifted you from the Soviets.” The woman looked confused by this news, so he said, “Why don’t you tell me what you remember from the last few weeks.”

She blanched a little, but the hand holding the spoon stayed steady. Snake set the canteen that Stingray had pitched across the room earlier, still sealed and full of water, on the bed next to her, and she pulled it closer, but didn’t drink. Instead, she started talking. “Poe took me out for a mission. It involved a plane ride, but I don’t know how long because they sedated me.”

“Poe?” Snake interrupted. 

“Friend’s enforcer, bodyguard, whatever, and my handler on missions.” She barely paused for the explanation. “We went from the plane to a helicopter, where I was blindfolded, and from the chopper to a truck, where I was still blindfolded. Then we got out and walked. It was rocky and barren --”

“Ocelot said Afghanistan,” he interjected.

She shrugged. “Sounds right I guess. They set me up above a military camp with a pair of binoculars, a photograph of a man, and instructions to determine who, in that camp, the man was most loyal to. I was just setting down to work when shots were fired. Poe grabbed me and we started to run, but we didn’t get far. They shot Poe. I tried to play dead, but it was no good and someone hit me in the head. When I came to, someone was talking to me in Russian, I guess; I couldn’t understand him. I was naked and tied up and he hit me a few times. Either no one in the camp spoke English or they weren’t that interested in what I had to say because after a couple of days of yelling and slapping, they stopped trying.”

“Ocelot said that the Soviets figured out that someone in the American intelligence system wanted you back in one piece and brokered a lucrative trade deal.”

“Do you know how long I was there?”

“Two weeks.”

Orbweaver didn’t say anything, ate a few bites. Then she said, “What’s today’s date?”

“December 6.”

“And the year?”

“1974.”

She let out a sudden exhalation. “December 6, 1974,” she repeated. “They would never tell me what day it was, how long I had been there, how long I’d been asleep or unconscious…”

“When did Zero take you?” Snake asked.

“The last day I remember is November 14, 1973. I was trying to explain to my mom that I couldn’t come home for Thanksgiving, that I needed to study for exams…” She trailed off, then gave her head a bit of a shake. “They gave me some food and water, the Russians, but they kept me tied up and pretty much nude. Having a guy come in a jerk off while staring at me became a regular occurrence. I kept wondering why none of them touched me, but if they had a deal with Zero… in any case, I was in and out a lot. I remember an explosion, then Ocelot cutting me down and picking me up, and I remember the sound of gunfire and the feeling of falling, and then a metal floor, maybe a helicopter?”

“That’s how you got here.” Snake scraped the last bit of applesauce out of his carton. When Orbweaver didn’t say anything else, he asked, “Why wouldn’t you talk to Stingray?”

“I wasn’t sure it wasn’t another one of Friend’s traps,” she answered.

“Traps?”

“When Friend first put me to work, I tried lying about what I saw, but some of the missions were set-ups and they knew I was lying. I kept trying it until Poe brought me a photo of my parents’ dog, disemboweled in front of their house, and told me my little brother was next.”

Snake grunted. “Holding their family hostage is one of the best ways to keep an agent in line.”

Orbweaver hummed in assent. “As far as I knew, Ocelot had brought me back to Friend, which meant that this was all some kind of test.”

“And what convinced you otherwise?”

“You have no connection to Friend and rather vengeful feelings toward Zero. I still wasn’t sure why someone else was pretending to call the shots around here, but I decided that you weren’t likely to know where my family is.”

Snake snorted. “It wouldn’t be hard to find out.” Orbweaver’s face fell immediately, and Snake felt a little bad. “Listen, one gun to another, the best thing you can do for your family is to forget about them.”

“I’m not a gun,” she spat.

“You really think anyone is going to treat you as anything other than a tactical tool once they find out what you can do?”

She glared at him. “So you’re gonna treat me like Zero, then? Threaten my family to make sure I’m a good little gun?”

He met her glare levelly. “No. I created MSF to give soldiers a chance to fight for themselves. Not for country, not for ideology, but because soldiers is what they are.” He paused pointedly. “Or what they’ve been made.”

It was her turn to snort. “No human institution exists without ideology, though that’s easy to forget when the whole world is caught up in struggle between capitalism and communism.” She worked her spoon in the cup, pausing with the bite halfway to her mouth to add. “Though I do see the appeal of leaving nationalism behind.”

Snake felt the same annoyance he always felt when Kaz wanted to talk about the economic and political theory of MSF. “What I’m trying to say,” he growled in irritation, “is that you can stay here and work for us, but no one is going to force you to do anything. You don’t even have to go into the field; we need people who can cook and mend uniforms as bad as combat troops.”

“And if I didn’t want to stay here?”

“Then we’d send you back home. But we both know that’s not really an option.”

She didn’t answer, just looked down at her hands in her lap. The silence stretched on and Snake started to wish he’d brought a cigar with him. He needed to ask more questions, but wanted to give the woman time to process that she could never really go home, at least not for a long time.

He didn’t have to wait as long as he thought he would; after a couple of minutes, she said, “I guess I knew that from the day Friend named me Orbweaver.” She rubbed the palms of her hands across her cheeks. Snake felt a little stab of guilt again. “There are other places you could go,” he began, “besides back to the States…”

“But nowhere I’d be safe for long,” she finished, “not as long as Zero and Friend want me.”

“You could learn to fight here.”

“In exchange for for use of my skills?”

Snake leaned back and eyed her nonchalantly. “That would be entirely up to you. But while we’re on the subject, what exactly is it that Orbweaver can do?”

The woman sniffed. “After each round of hormone experiments, Friend would run me through a battery of tests to see if I was any more telepathic than before. But the time he actually succeeded, we didn’t need any tests; when I woke up, I could see…” she paused. “Well, in that moment, I called them webs. It was like everyone was wrapped in cocoons, with all the individual threads of silk spreading out in a hundred directions. When I later tried to explain to Friend how inaccurate that metaphor was, he wouldn’t listen; he was stuck on this idea of his pet spider, sitting in the middle of a giant network, gently tweaking the web.”

“So what do you see?”

She sighed, sounding a little exasperated. “I mean, threads are my mind’s way of providing a visual framework for the information that, somehow, my brain is getting. But there are big thick cords and giant knots and sometimes there are colors or movement. And sometimes there are other physical sensations, like a queasy stomach or a jump-scare or a slow deep breath. And the spider metaphor also suggests that I have some kind of control over how these things are shaped. I can’t just go out and rearrange people’s loyalties by pulling a few strings.”

Snake grunted. “So find a better way to explain it to me.”

She thought for a second. “Let’s say that, instead of a spider, I’m an owl. Owls want to eat mice, but context is important, so the owl has to go to where the mouse is likely to be when it’s likely to be there. So if this mouse is some piece of information I want to find out about a person, I need them to be in a situation where that information is likely to be at the fore of their mind. Right now, I can see your relationship to Ocelot clear as day, because he’s pertinent to you in this moment.” She kept looking at him, eyes moving in and out of focus. “Your relationship with Sokolov is much more distant.”

Snake kept his features even, but the woman plowed ahead with her explanation without noticing his discomfort. “So the owl goes out at dusk and sits in a tree overlooking a field where the mouse might be, and she waits, and as she waits, she watches, but for a long time all she sees is grass, rustling in the wind. All these blades of grass, a landscape that keeps shifting under her eyes and no choice but to watch. Eventually she dives, and sometimes she comes up with a mouse, sometimes a vole, sometimes nothing.”

“What makes the difference?” Snake asked as she took a big gulp of water from the canteen. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and answered, “A lot of times it depends on whether or not the mouse comes out of his hole.”

“Alright,” said Snake, “a final question. What can you see about me?”

She waved her hand. “You’ll have to be more specific. I could talk for hours without hitting a mouse that you’d consider proof of what I can do.”

Snake reflected for a moment. It would need to be something that couldn’t have gotten back to Zero, in case she was a very well-prepared plant, something recent. “Kazuhira Miller,” he said finally.

Her eyes focused in and out again, occasionally darting in the direction of the Command Center where Kaz’s office was. “Business partner?” she said. “You trust him more than most anyone, trust him enough to sleep with him, even though he tried to kill you once. Maybe twice.” Her eyes focused back on his face. “Did I get the mouse?”

He didn’t answer directly, instead lowering his voice to say, “I trust you know the value of discretion.”

She actually started laughing, though it was a little strained, probably due to the busted ribs. When she calmed down enough to speak, she still sounded a little hysterical. “You think I want to make myself even more enemies? Right now, I have no reason to talk about anything I see.”

Snake held her gaze for a moment, then got up from the chair. She was tired, needed some sleep and probably some more morphine. And he believed her; she had no reason to talk about what she saw until she saw the good of it herself. “Rest up,” he said, moving the chair against the wall. “After the medics discharge you, we can talk about what kind of work you want to do. If you want to stay that is.”

“You’d really let me go?” Her voice was still unsteady.

“I’ve got no reason to keep you as a prisoner. I’d much rather recruit you as a soldier.” He paused with with his hand on the door. “But can’t you see that in the thread between me and you?”

“I can’t see anyone’s relationship with me,” she replied, leaning back in the bed. “Lately I’ve just started assuming that everyone I meet could kill me without feeling a thing.”

Snake grunted as he opened the door. “Not a bad policy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in "Don't Forget These Moments," Medic is called Whale, and that got stuck in my head when I was writing, so here's a little hat-tip in that direction: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4920481/chapters/11307556
> 
> Also, as someone who, like, studies ideology for a living, having Snake talk about existing without/beyond ideology makes me laugh. Nice try, Kojima.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaz apologizes the best way he knows how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I wrote this chapter years ago. Like, long enough ago I lived in a different state. When I went back to it for proofreading, I discovered I kinda hated it and I apparently have a hard time figuring out how to write Kaz? Anyway, long story short, I did some revising and also spent way more time that I should have trying to avoid anachronistic slang, because I am a damn professional.
> 
> Also, SMUT AHOY!

_ “It’s gonna be a lonely battle,” Snake said, and Kaz was close enough to see fatigue in the slight slump of his shoulders. He had no idea where Snake was going with this; when he’d come up here to make his confession, he’d expected to have the shit kicked out him, not… whatever this was. “No good or evil,” Snake went on, “no winners or losers. Business --” he spat the word like it was a fly in his beer “--will have to wait. The question we have to ask ourselves now is…” He turned to face Kaz, and Kaz couldn’t help but flinch away a little at the glare. “Can we survive long enough to see the 21st century?” _

_ “I’m with you, boss,” Kaz reassured immediately, hand drifting unconsciously toward his heart. “We’ll see how it turns out, together.” _

_ Snake stared at him with the smoke from the R&D platform rising up behind him like he was framed by the gates of hell. Stared like he would at a particular disgusting piece of mold that he just found at the bottom of his noodles cup. Like Kaz was a whore passed out in a gutter, just asking to get pissed on. _

_ Then he turned and walked away, stomping toward the waiting chopper. “The hunt is on, Kaz,” he called over his shoulder, “and the whole fucking world is on our tail.” _

_ “What?” Kaz yelled back, angry at having all this laid on him. “It's not like I actually wanted everything to go tits up!” _

Kaz had been replaying that moment over and over in his head. It didn’t matter how much he worked, how much he drank, or how many times he tried to sleep -- it just kept started up again every time he let his mind wander. 

They had talked since then. Snake had come back from the field and carried on like Kaz’s position at MSF wasn’t in question. But they only talked about MSF operations in a barebones way. Snake was cold, blank, and entirely professional when he came into Kaz’s office, and Kaz was ready to fall on his knees and beg forgiveness in the best way he knew how.

He knew it would do no good. Big Boss would have to decide for himself whether or not to forgive him. 

This latest mission had almost been a relief. It was a complicated infiltration and hostage recovery op, so Snake had decided to head up the combat unit himself. It gave Kaz a chance to wallow in his self-pity and guilt without worrying that Snake would walk in on him staring morosely out the window and/or snap his neck in his sleep.

The worst part was the knot in his lungs every time he remembered Snake taking off his glasses and kissing him like a man desperate for air.

He took a large gulp of coffee, knowing the acid wouldn’t sit well in his stomach and not caring because the burn in his mouth pushed the memory away. He’d ended radio support with the field team nearly an hour ago, and they would be back soon, bringing a new round of paperwork, so he needed to at least make a dent in what was in front of him.

He set his shoulders like he was wading into a bear pit, deliberately pushing Snake from his mind.

First off, inventory requests. Medical was requesting a resupply on condoms and diazepam; he signed off on the form and added the items to his weekly order list. R&D had their usual assortment of parts and tools with details about the projects they were for and the approximate costs. He approved some and vetoed others; a more precise missile targeting system would be nice, but they had to spend too much on post-ZEKE Mother Base repairs to justify the cost. A new audio surveillance device, however, was relatively inexpensive. The Intel crew would be happy about that one.

He signed the R&D request form and set it aside to sent back to Flamingo, who managed R&D’s supplies and ordering. Then he looked over Intel’s proposed budget for the next two weeks -- most of their money went to paying off informants, with some travel costs -- before adding a note about trying to keep tabs on Ocelot’s whereabouts and scrawling his name across the bottom of the page. Next was the inventory from the Mess Hall. MSF had a standing arrangement with a grocer on the mainland for a weekly supply of produce, bread, milk, and eggs, so Giant Panda just had to let him know when there were running low on the non-perishables they bought in bulk. He wrote a few things on his weekly order list, then groaned as he looked at the request at the bottom of the form. Giant Panda had been lobbying for months for a better stove. Kaz had done his share of cooking on the stove they had and found it perfectly serviceable, but at least once a month, the Mess Hall chief requested a replacement. This time she was claiming that the attack by ZEKE had further damaged the stove’s structure, making it unsafe for continued use. He tapped his pen against the paper; the stove could really be damaged, and ancestors knew the last thing they needed was a fire gutting the Mess Hall. 

_ Or _ , and it was a big  _ or _ , Giant Panda could just be using recent events to lend her request extra urgency.

He decided to have one of the R&D guys go look at it, and he was in the process of adding a note to Flamingo on the R&D form when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he said, without looking up. It wasn’t until he finished his note that he realized it was Snake standing in front of his desk. “Oh hey,” he said, sitting up in surprise. “You got back quick.” Snake had apparently had time to shower, dress, and fill out his post-op paperwork, which he tossed on Kaz’s desk.

“Morpho is taking the recovered hostages to the drop point,” Snake said as he sat down on the edge of Kaz’s cot.

“Great,” said Kaz, a little concerned by the way Snake leaned his elbows on his knees and looked at the floor. “I’ll contact the client about wiring us the rest of the payment.” He waited for Snake to say something, but when the older man kept silent, he stood to lean against the desk and asked, “Everything else okay, Boss?”

Snake took a breath and, without taking his eyes off the floor, began to speak, like he had been practicing in his head. “When the Boss went into space, she said what she had seen was a world without borders. That was what she wanted, her will. But Zero and I disagreed about the best way to do that. Things just got worse until…” he trailed off, finding a hiccup in his recitation, searching for words.

“Les Enfants?” Kaz supplied, thinking that maybe Snake didn’t know he knew Snake’s reasons for leaving. 

His suspicions were confirmed when Snake sighed and answered, “Yeah, Les Enfants. And I left.” A weighty pause. Another breath. Kaz leaned forward slightly, intent on hearing the next thing that came out of Snake’s mouth even if it was fart noises or some crazy lecture about vampires because,  _ dammit _ , the man was talking to him. 

Snake continued, more slowly now. “Zero thinks he can fulfill the Boss’s will by controlling people, whether through war or by creating a world where war is unnecessary because people are complacent.” He enunciated carefully, like he wanted desperately to be understood. “But that would just be replacing two superpowers with one. I built MSF to be free of superpowers, to help others be free. But Kaz,” Snake said, finally looking up at his XO, piercing blue eye doing its best to laser a hole straight to Kaz’s soul, “do you think Zero could be right?”

Kaz was taken aback.

No, Kaz was fucking sideswiped and bleeding out on the pavement. Snake never liked talking about the whys of MSF, only the whats and wheres and hows, and Kaz suddenly realized how deeply his betrayal had hit him, to make him reconsider these questions, even after vowing to put off his quest for the truth about the Boss. 

He swallowed thickly, deciding that he owed Snake blunt honesty. “When Zero contacted me,” he said, choosing carefully among all the things he could say, “all I thought about was what would be good for MSF. He wanted you to rejoin him, but already knew you well enough to know that would never happen, especially the more MSF developed.” He found himself offering a defeated shrug. “It seemed safe business venture -- slip details about you to Zero, grow MSF without interruption. As far as Zero’s new superpower…” he trailed off, considering. “Some people consider peace to be the absence of disagreement. But, really, that would make us… not human.”

Kaz chewed on his lip nervously as Snake considered his answer, his eyes searching Kaz’s face. After a long moment, he said, “Then why did you tell Zero that Paz had finished the modifications on ZEKE?”

Kaz felt his jaw drop. “Wait, what?” he stammered. 

“I found Paz’s diary,” Snake continued in a voice that made up for its low volume with its sharp edge. “She had finished the modifications on ZEKE weeks ago, but was delaying her strike until someone on base told Zero that the mods were done, and he directly ordered Paz to make her move immediately.” There was fire and brimstone below the calm tone, and Kaz didn’t miss the way Snake’s hands were curled into fists. “What the hell did you think Paz was going to do that wouldn’t involve destroying MSF or Mother Base?”

“That wasn’t me,” Kaz said, throwing up his hands when Snake growled at him and stood up. “Seriously, I never told Zero anything about ZEKE. We talked about the mammal pod, but never ZEKE.” Snake moved closer to him, and somehow, even though Kaz had an inch or two on him, towered over the blond. “Really, Snake,” Kaz almost babbled, “I know I was a complete fucking idiot, but I’m not that stupid. If I thought Paz actually stood a chance of hurting MSF,” his voice dropped a little as he looked up into Snake’s eyes, “of hurting you, I would have killed her myself.”

Snake stood there glaring for what felt like an eternity, Kaz’s heart racing the whole time. His mind ran through the many, many ways Snake could kill him as they stood in this room, and the many, many more ways he could torture information out of him, not that Kaz had any more to give. Right before he was sure he’d run or scream or shit himself, Snake let out a sigh and said, “It wasn’t you.”

Kaz only had time to draw a deep breath of relief before Snake’s mouth was on his, insistent and aggressive. Surprised, then relaxing into it, Kaz let his tongue tangle with Snake’s and moved a hand to grip his hip. Snake pulled his hair, twisting his head back to bite down the side of his neck, the bristles of his beard making Kaz shiver. Kaz let this go on for a few long seconds, his hand gripping Snake’s hip tighter, before putting his hand to the other man’s chest and pushing him back toward the bed. Snake acquiesced, but he pulled Kaz’s scarf with him as he flopped back onto the rickety cot, jerking Kaz down with him. Kaz straddled his hips and wasted no time getting Snake’s shirt over his head, too relieved at not being dead and to eager to demonstrate his devotion to question the sudden change of pace. He flicked his tongue across an earlobe as he worked at the Boss’s belt, hearing a low growl below him and feeling Snake fumble with the buttons of his shirt. After a moment, he managed to push it back over Kaz’s shoulders, running his calloused hand over bare skin, dragging a little whine from Kaz’s throat when he pinched a nipple.

Kaz pulled at Snake’s pants, Snake lifting his hips to help and kicking uselessly at his boots. “Let me get those,” Kaz said, but even as he untied the laces, his eyes never left Snake’s cock tenting his underwear, magnificent even at half-mast. Soon the older man was completely stripped, and Kaz found himself exactly where he had been hoping -- on his knees between Snake’s thighs. He ran his tongue up the underside of Snake’s cock, feeling it twitch and hearing a rumble in Snake’s chest. He planted soft kisses along the shaft and sucked the balls lightly as Snake swelled to his full size, only then delicately flicking his tongue around the head. He glanced up, saw Snake was propped on his elbows, watching his every move, and licked his lips in a obscene way before taking the whole tip into his mouth, moaning his own pleasure. It was salty and heavy on his tongue, and he felt his own pants growing tighter as he worked more and more of Snake’s cock into his mouth, stroking the rest of the shaft with one hand.

Soon Snake was flat on his back above him, panting audibly, and Kaz felt a hand tangle in his hair, urging him to move faster. He was happy to oblige, bobbing his head as Snake’s hips jerked. The hand gripped harder, forcing Snake further into Kaz’s throat, and Kaz relaxed his jaw, humming hungrily as the Boss fucked his face, thrusting harder and grunting harder until he came with a quiet but emphatic groan. Kaz sucked the cum down -- salty and bitter, like Snake had eaten something terrible for him -- and licked his entire length clean, feeling all too aware of his own arousal. He slid up Snake’s body to kiss the other’s slack mouth, tongues pressing against each other as Snake got a taste of himself and Kaz ground his erection on Snake’s hip. Snake’s lips curved into a smile, and Kaz quickly found himself flipped on his back, with Snake pulling off his pants, running knuckles along his very swollen member in a way that made Kaz’s breath hitch in his throat. The Boss reached for the bottle of lube that Kaz kept under the cot, giving Kaz an idle tug as he did, and then carefully coated his fingers before circling a digit around Kaz’s asshole. Kaz whined loudly; for someone who claimed to have had no previous experience with men, Snake had been a quick study on how to push Kaz’s buttons. He gently worked one finger in before he closed his mouth over the tip of Kaz’s dick, swiping his tongue around the head after pulling the foreskin back a little. Kaz whined again. “Boss,” he panted, “please!” Snake responded by sliding a second finger in. Maybe he was sloppy slut, but Kaz was quickly pushing back against the pressure, arching his back when Snake crooked his fingers just so. Snake ran his tongue just under the head before removing his mouth in favor of roughly jerking Kaz’s cock and pumping his other hand in and out of Kaz’s ass. After a week of nothing, the stimulation was overwhelming, and Kaz was spilling over Snake’s hand faster than he would ever admit, with his teeth gritted and a drawn out groan ripping through him.

In a haze, he scooted over as Snake collapsed on the cot beside him, feeling the heat from the other man’s body and the relief of knowing his friend had… well maybe hadn’t forgiven him but at least wanted to be on speaking/fucking terms again. Listening to Snake’s breath even out and letting out a sigh of his own, Kaz started drifting, feeling relaxed for the first time in way too long.

He was well on his way to being asleep when Snake’s voice broke through his reverie: “I guess this means we still have a mole on the base.”

Kaz sighed and rubbed his eyes under his glasses, a little amused that they had stayed on. “Then it’s a good thing Ocelot gifted us an experienced mole-hunter.”

Snake grunted and reached over Kaz’s body to where his pants lay on the floor, retrieving cigar and lighter. The movement was casual and intimate, and when Snake wiped Kaz’s shirt over the younger man’s stomach, cleaning off most of the cum, Kaz was pretty sure this was more than Snake needing a fuck.

Snake lay back on the cot, lit his cigar, and took a long drag before speaking. “How is she?”

Kaz rolled onto his side and propped his head on his hand. “Med Bay is ready to discharge her; just waiting for you to okay it. The ribs will need a little longer heal…” He trailed off shrugging. They both knew about cracked ribs. Snake offered him the cigar with deliberate casualness -- definitely forgiveness and he wanted Kaz to know it. Kaz accepted the offering, took a drag, and quietly said, “Thanks, boss,” as he passed it back. Snake answered by reaching up to ruffle his XO’s hair, with something approaching real casualness this time.

They lay there in silence for a few moments, and Kaz felt the tension from the previous week begin to leave his shoulders as he basked in the closeness of Snake’s body. “So,” he said, finally breaking the silence, “you think she’ll work for us?”

“Yeah,” Snake said out of the side of his mouth. “Don’t know if she’ll do field work yet, but she knows she doesn’t have a lot of options, and Mother Base is the closest thing to freedom.”

“So, Mess Hall crew?”

“Actually, I was thinking we might make her your assistant.”

Kaz blinked. “My assistant?”

Snake glanced over at his face. “Yeah. She’s college educated, could help with the paperwork, at least the more mundane stuff. And it would be as good an excuse as any for her to nose around looking for our mole.”

Kaz frowned, glancing over at the mounds of paper on his desk. It would be nice to have help... “Are you sure we want her in our paperwork?” he asked. “In case she’s a plant herself?”

Snake shrugged. “We both know you keep the really sensitive stuff in your head.” He reached down to snub the cigar out against the floor. “Besides, not having to do all the mission records and supply orders would free you up for the kind of business that no one can do but you.”

The lidded look in Snake’s eye told Kaz that he wasn’t just talking about Kaz’s ability to land contracts. Kaz smirked in response and said, “What can I say? I’m skilled with my tongue.”

Snake barked a laugh, then sat up, scratching his stomach. “We’ll put her in combat training with the other rookies,” he said, returning to work. “Two hours CQC, one in the gun range every day. Rest of the time, she’ll be at your beckon call, and if she is a plant, you’ll figure it out soon enough.”

Kaz swung his legs over the side of the cot and began to dress. “I’ll start the personnel file,” he said as he worked the MSF standard issue black boxer briefs over his hips. “You wanna go ahead and call her in this morning?”

Snake reached around him for his own clothes, hand caressing across Kaz’s hip and down his thigh. “Yeah,” he said, “but after breakfast. Your ass is gonna get bony if you keep skipping meals.”

Kaz felt himself flush, realizing how closely Snake had been watching him during his silence, realizing he hadn’t just been scrutinizing the younger man’s loyalty. He swallowed and answered, “Whatever you say, Boss.”

They finished dressing, and Kaz took a minute to straighten his hair so it didn’t look like Snake had been grabbing it as he fucked his mouth. “Are we going to keep the Orbweaver codename?” he asked absent-mindedly as he cleaned a smudge from his aviators.

“Nah,” answered Snake from across the room. “Don’t want to make it too easy for Zero to find her.”

“Any ideas, then?” Kaz had always been amused by how much Snake seemed to enjoy assigning animals to his soldiers.

“Owl,” Snake said without hesitation.

Kaz snorted as he and Snake exited his quarters and stepped into the early morning chill. “You’ve been thinking about this one,” he said.

Snake grunted. “She picked it herself, really.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sigh... I'm not really a professional, am I?


	4. Chapter 4

Miller ended the phone call and stretched his arms over his head, a blur of motion in Owl’s periphery where she was hunched over. The report was one that Cougar had turned in earlier that day, and Owl was trying to decipher both her handwriting and her inexact English. In the weeks she had been Miller’s assistant, this was the task she was most often given -- writing debriefing summaries of the field reports brought in by combat units. On rare occasions, she would get an intel report as well, but Owl wasn’t sure if they were just fewer and farther between or if Miller didn’t trust her with them yet. Not that Owl really cared; she wasn’t entirely sure she trusted Miller.

Miller called for Snake on the radio and, at the boss’s gruff answer, said, “Just got a call about a job. Wanted to go over the logistics with you before I said yay or nay. You free?”

Owl finally realized that the word she was looking at wasn’t, in fact, English and kicked back from her little table in the corner of Miller’s office with a sigh, heading for a shelf where Miller kept the reference books and selecting the Finnish-English dictionary. Miller watched her. “Cougar again?”

“It’s getting better,” she answered. “She’s at least started just using the Finnish word instead of taking her best guess at the English one she wants.” At one point, another soldier in her unit had talked Cougar into believing that “pussy” was a catch-all term in English, much like one might use “whatchamacallit” or “thingamabob.”

By the time Snake arrived, Owl had determined that Cougar and company had encountered a market of illegal goods in the Panamanian jungle and had detoured around it. She made a note to get Intel to consult Cougar about its exact location.

“Owl,” called Miller, snapping her attention away from her work. She squinted a little as she looked at him; whenever he and Snake were in the same room, the line between them was like a laser boring into her forehead. “Go get us some lunch,” Miller continued. “All of us.”

Owl got up without a word and headed out the door. It was a little early for lunch, which meant that Miller wanted a minute to talk to Snake, but still wanted something from her. Which probably meant that the phone call Miller had gotten either wasn’t a job or, if it was a job, Miller wanted her to be part of it. She chewed her lip as she walked down the stairs, nodding at Bat at the bottom. Snake had said he wouldn’t make her go into the field, and she believed him, but he had already asked her to use her skills for MSF once, identifying who was leaking information to Zero. Of course, eliminating that threat had been in her own best interest as well, which was why she hadn’t hesitated. But a job, with no personal investment, nothing to be gained for her own security… that was different.

As she crossed the walkway from Command to the Mess Hall, her thoughts turned to how her body felt today. Her muscles ached like they had every day for the last three week, from running and lifting and punching and hitting the ground over and over and over, two hours every day. She could run a mile without stopping, but that still wasn’t saying much, considering how little she slept and how often she lost her last meal over the side of the platform because the anxiety in her stomach bubbled out of control. She hadn’t been subjected to a group of people this size, not at this close proximity, since Friend had fucked with her head, and the overwhelming amount of information she encountered during something as routine as lunch left her feeling exhausted and found her spending most of her free time in her sleep pod, despite the friendly overtures of Gecko and others.

In the Mess Hall, she signalled to Iguana that she needed lunch for three. He brought her a tray with bowls of beans, rice, potatoes, and chicken in a red tangy-smelling sauce. In a bag, he had stored three of the plastic plates they used, silverware, and three bottles of cola, a little treat to celebrate the Christmas season. She took it all with a small “Gracias” -- Iguana had been helping her with her Spanish during their shared mealtimes -- and began the return trip. By the time she returned to Miller’s quarters, she had repeatedly talked herself into and out of taking the job that she supposed they were going to offer while also berating herself for being so presumptuous as to assume that they had any need of her beyond fetching food and translating reports.

Miller and Snake were bent over a map spread the desk, so Owl set the tray on her own small table and started dishing food onto one of the plates. “There’s bound to be some good vantage points along the ridge,” Miller was saying.

“But if it was just a matter of watching, they wouldn’t have called us,” Snake replied. He pointed at the map as Owl set a plate next to him. “There’s a village here, and one here. If someone is leaking information, they’re probably going there to meet contacts. We could try planting people…”

Miller sighed. “Yeah, but that’s a lot of time. And the client said he suspects this has been going on since before they moved to this location, so the mole might not be making face-to-face contact with anyone.”

Owl worked to keep her expression smooth as she set Miller’s plate at his elbow, but she couldn’t help but feel a little pleased with herself for reading the situation correctly. A mole-hunt definitely meant they wanted her in on this contract. She scooped the small portions that were left onto her own plate as Miller said, “Owl, come give us your opinion on this.”

Her stomach flipped over a little; it hadn’t been hard to identify who had been leaking information from Mother Base, though Zebra had never realized exactly who he had been informing. She was worried that Snake and Miller might have exaggerated ideas about her abilities, might expect more from her than she could give. She pulled her chair over to the desk and sat down. As Miller began explaining the situation, Snake scraped several spoonfuls of food off his plate and onto her own. She looked up, surprised and a little angry, but his returned gaze was unwavering. He knew she threw up a lot of what she ate; she’d seen the glow of his cigar nearby more than once when she finally pulled her head over the edge of the barracks platform. She wasn’t sure if his gesture now was one of concern or admonishment. 

Pushing down the part of her that worried about these things, she started eating and focused on Miller. The client in question managed a small mercenary guerilla group in Columbia that had recently become concerned about a mole when four of their last six armaments shipments had been hijacked completely. He was also fairly certain, given their equipment, that the hijackers were CIA-funded. “The job is to identify the mole,” Miller concluded, “with a significant bonus if we can also tell the client what information has been leaked.”

“Second part shouldn’t be too hard,” Snake added. “We just have to get the right guy to interrogate first.”

“What’s the size of the company?” Owl asked, picking at the chicken on her plate.

“Fifty men, give or take,” Miller said, starting his own meal.

“And the base? What’s it like?”

“It’s an old coffee bean processing facility.” Miller pointed to a spot on the map, but that was pretty meaningless to Owl, who still found topography a confusing array of lines.

Still, she mulled it over. Fifty men wasn’t many; some of the mole hunts she’d done for Friend had involved three hundred. And a makeshift base would mean those fifty men would spend a lot of time in the open, few walls to hinder her line of sight. She took a couple more bites, and slowly became aware of Miller and Snake watching her. “If you want to do this job, we’ll take the contract,” Miller said. “If you don’t, then we’ll pass. It’s up to you.”

Owl looked over at Snake. His face was just as even as before. “You choose your jobs,” he said.

Owl looked back down at the map because it was too hard to think with all of Snake’s threads clouding her vision. It was a manageable job and, really, without Friend and Poe limiting her information, she could do it a lot faster than she could have in the past. She kind of wanted to see how good at this she could be…

“If I take this job,” she said, levelly returning Snake’s gaze, trying to fake a confidence she didn’t necessarily feel, “I expect a bonus. It’s very specialized work.”

Miller started to complain, but Snake’s lips lifted in just a hint of a smile. “What’s your price?”

“Fluoxetine,” she answered without hesitation. At their blank looks she continued. “It’s an experimental drug, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. It raises serotonin levels, which in turn raises oxytocin levels, which increases empathy. Friend started me on it because he thought it would enhance my abilities, and it did, but it also made me less anxious and he wanted to keep me as off-kilter as possible, so he stopped giving it to me,”

She looked back and forth between Miller and Snake, striving to keep her face impassive. The grin never left Snake’s face while Miller furrowed his brow. “What do you think, Kaz?” Snake asked, looking over to his XO. “Something you can get your hands on?”

“I think so,” Kaz said slowly, jotting a note on the pad at his elbow. “I’ll check with the guy we get the diazepam from.”

“Alright then,” said Snake, “what’s the plan?”

“Miller’s right around the surveillance,” Owl said. “Makeshift camp of a lot of small-ish buildings means everyone will be out in the open a lot, so if we can set up a blind…” she trailed off, a thought coming to her. “What kind of audio surveillance equipment do we have? Any chance we could listen in on the camp?”

“Audio?” said Miller. “I thought you just needed visual.”

“People’s feelings change as they talk,” Owl answered. “If I know what kind of talk is causing certain reactions, it’s easier to figure out what’s going on.”

Miller grunted. “I think R&D has been working on their directional mic system.”

“Okay, so let’s say three, maybe four days of surveillance,” Owl continued, “then we’ll need some excuse to go on base, if I haven’t found the guy by then, or if I’m not sure.”

“Not a problem,” said Miller. “We’ll say we’re there to supervise some training exercises. What else do you need?”

“A translator familiar with the local dialect, tape recorder and tapes, a notebook, and a couple of ballpoint pens.”

“That it?” asked Miller. Owl nodded. Miller turned to Snake. “What do you think, Boss?”

Snake grunted and looked at the map. “Not going to be able to get a helicopter in there.”

“No,” agreed Miller, unfolding the map further. “Could probably set a couple of jeeps down back here on the coast and drive in. I think we’ve got a couple of Colombianos in the motorcade who could double as translators.”

Snake looked where Miller was pointing and nodded. “Charlie unit is going with me tomorrow, so let’s send Echo. Leave tomorrow afternoon, enough time to set up camp before dark.” He looked up at Owl. “You can start surveillance early the next day. Sound good?” Owl nodded again. “Good,” Snake continued. “I’ll join you in a few days.” He turned back to Miller. “You’ll do the briefing this evening?”

“Yeah,” Miller answered, getting the map tidied back up. “I’ll call the client and tell him our timeline, arrange payment and all that, then I’ll get her started on the paperwork.”

“Then let’s do the briefing for the Libreta job at 1500,” Snake said, standing and moving toward the door. 

“See you then,” Miller said as Snake exited, leaving him and Owl alone. He grinned at her. “You’re going to learn how to plan an op from start to finish.”

While Kaz made phone calls and did last minute prep for Libreta, Owl dug through personnel files to find the Colombianos from the motorcade. Then she spent an hour in R&D with Appaloosa, a leggy, excitable young man, demonstrating his most recent model of the directional mic and teaching her how to use it. Then she had to find Echo unit’s CO, Bear, to tell him to have his squad in the briefing room at 1800, then to the commissary because that was apparently where one went to find notebooks and ink pens. When she got back to Miller’s office, her head was spinning with all the details of all the people, and she sat down and pressed her palms to her eyes as the XO looked over her mission proposal. “Why did you pick Salamander over Ferret?” asked, referencing her choice of translators. “Ferret has more field experience.”

“Because Ferret hates Hermit Crab’s guts right now,” she answered without looking up. They had been carrying on a clandestine affair, but had recently had a falling out, not that Miller needed to know that.

“They would have been professional in the field,” Miller replied.

“I’m sure they would have,” Owl said. She wasn’t, though. In fact, she was pretty sure the two men would be trading blows soon if something didn’t change. “But I would find it distracting”

“Hm, I guess you would.” Miller rustled a few pages before he said, “Alright, this all looks good.” Owl heard him scrawl his name across the bottom of the form. “Good work.”

She looked up at him to see a little smile. “Yeah?” she asked, unused to praise.

“Yeah,” he answered, gathering up a file and a couple of maps. “I’m going to the briefing. You’ve already missed your afternoon training, so just work on getting caught up with those field reports.”

Later that night Owl sat on the edge of the barracks platform, pressing her face against the cool metal of the railing and willing away the churning in her stomach. Snake’s voice floated out of the darkness. “You gonna keep it down tonight?”

“Maybe,” she answered in a tight voice, not trusting herself to open her mouth too much. She heard steps behind her, heavy boots on the metal flooring, then felt something cold press against the back of her neck. “Hold that there,” Snake instructed, and she did, realizing it was a glass bottle, sides beading with sweat. “It's ginger beer,” he continued, “and it's open, so don't spill it.”

Snake leaned against the railing next to her nonchalantly as she spent the next few minutes alternating between taking sips from the bottle and pressing it to the back of her neck and under her throat. Eventually he said, “You gonna be able to keep it together in the field?”

She shrugged half-heartedly. “I'm doing better. Stopped losing my lunch too, at least.”

Snake snorted. “And Lungfish was so proud that he made you puke so many days in a row.”

“Well, the running didn't help anything.” There was a silence as Snake lit a cigar and Owl sipped some more of the ginger beer. “I haven't been around this many people regularly since…” she trailed off, not entirely sure what to call the moment she woke up with her senses bombarded with new information. “For the most part, the only people I saw were Friend and Poe, with the occasional random grunt. And on missions, we were usually far away. I haven't had to… to interact with the people whose secrets are plain for me to see.”

Snake grunted an acknowledgement. “And by the time you get to the end of the day…”

“My body and mind are both exhausted and too keyed up,” she finished for him. 

Snake took a drag in the dark. “Sounds a bit like coming down off combat high.” 

Owl shrugged again.

After another moment, Snake said, “You know what I think your problem is?” Owl looked up to find Snake studying her with that intense blue eye of his. “You feel guilty.”

“What do I have to feel guilty about?” Owl snapped waspishly. 

Snake shrugged. “Nothing, I would say. Certainly nothing compared to everyone else on this base. But you do. You can't look anyone in the eye. Can't sleep. It's not the things you see that tear up your stomach. It's the fact that you think you shouldn't see them. The fact that you’re worried someone else will find out that you see them and hate you for it.”

Owl didn't say anything, but she felt very aware of how quickly she had dropped her gaze from Snake’s.

“Now I'm not saying you need to go around blabbing about everything you see,” Snake continued. “I'd really prefer you didn’t, both for personal reasons and for morale. And eventually, people will find out. They may hate you. More likely they’ll fear you.” He paused then said slowly and emphatically, “Fuck them. You had no choice in what happened to you, and if you're just gonna go on trying not to see because you feel guilty about things that weren't your fault, then you might as well just go ahead and blow your brains out.” The boss took another drag in the dark before adding quietly, “And if you don't think you can do it, I'll do it for you.”

Owl knew it was an offer of kindness and not necessarily a threat, but she was still suspected that Snake would judge her harshly if she made that choice. Not that there hadn't been nights when, staring down at the water below the deck, she thought about how easily it would be to just… fall. “I…” she started unsteadily, pausing to swallow before trying again. “I'm not ready for that yet.” She looked up to meet his gaze again and this time made a point of not looking away. 

Snake held her eye for a moment, then dug in a pocket with his cigar between gritted teeth. He pulled out a rattling bottle that he handed down to her. “Diazepam. To help you sleep until Kaz gets your other stuff.” And he left her sitting there.

When Owl got back to her sleep pod, she took two of the tiny pills and slept like she hadn’t a care in the world. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, I spend a lot of time thinking about vaginal infections in post-apocalyptic and survival situations. Like, when the world ends, I'm raiding stores for underwear.
> 
> Also, please enjoy my precious MSF randos, who I love dearly. Especially Raccoon, that little idiot.

The next morning, after breakfast, Owl returned to the nearly empty barracks to pack her gear. She opened her locker and looked down at all stuff she’d been given after she’d signed on with MSF, feeling bewildered. Poe had always given her clothes before taking her out in the field, and anytime they had been gone longer than a day or she had gotten wet or dirty or anything, he’d pulled extras from somewhere. She knew she was a shitty soldier, but she hadn’t realized exactly how useless she was until now that she didn’t even know how to pack a bag. The anxiety she had kept at bay all night began to swell. 

A voice cut through her thoughts. “Owl?” She looked up, saw one of the women from Echo unit at her side. “I’m Hornet,” she said, grinning with her generous mouth. “Bear told me to help you get your gear ready.” Owl couldn’t stop the sigh of relief, which made Hornet grin even wider. “Yeah,” the other women continued, “you were looking a little lost.”

“I’ve never had to prep my own gear before,” Owl admitted. She started to look away from Hornet and back down to the footlocker, then remembered last night’s conversation with Snake, and kept her gaze steady, letting the sensation of Hornet’s affection for her father, her annoyance with Lungfish for hitting on her again, her friendly rivalry with fellow sniper Goat, let all these things float by.

“Well let’s start with the basics,” Hornet said, apparently reading any hesitation on Owl’s face as embarrassment over her ineptitude, which wasn’t entirely inaccurate. She grabbed the canvas rucksack out of the locker and handed it to Owl. “You’ll want to pack an extra of everything: socks, pants, shirt, bra, whatnot. And then, you’ll want to pack every clean pair of underwear you’ve got.” She grabbed a pair of pants and started to roll them up tightly as she went on. “Men, their shorts get wet, sweaty, whatever, it’s no big deal. But trust me, when you’re out in the field, the last thing you want is a yeast infection cause you’re running around in wet panties for days.” 

“Damn straight,” called Giraffe, Echo’s other woman soldier, from the other end of the room. “And they still only give us the same number of pairs as the men.”

“Yeah, the  _ pendejos _ in the commissary think they’re doing us a favor, treating us just like the men,” Hornet answered, shoving the pants into the bottom of the rucksack Owl was holding.

Owl snorted. “I’ll see what I can do about it.”

Hornet looked up at her. “You can do that?”

Owl looked askance a little. “Well, Miller’s got me doing the inventory reports part of the time. Wouldn’t be hard to adjust some numbers the next time we order women’s underwear.”

Hornet grinned even wider than before. “About time they got a woman in that office.” She went back to digging through the mess in Owl’s locker, coming up with a pair of socks. “Master’s great, but he thinks he knows more about vaginas than he really does.” Owl watched the surge of admiration for Miller tinged with lust despite Hornet’s criticism, and when she snorted it was just as much in response to that as to Hornet’s words.

Soon she and Hornet had her clothes in the bag, all wadded up tightly, and a bedroll strapped on as well. Owl added the two notebooks and pack of ballpoint pens -- the bottle of pills was in her pocket -- and looked at Hornet expectantly. “The next thing is your ammo,” Hornet said.

“Ammo? But I don’t have a gun.”

“Then we’ll get you a gun too.”

Owl felt her stomach clench. “But I don’t want a gun.”

Hornet shrugged and grabbed her arm, leading her to the door. “Bear’s orders. No one goes out naked.”

Owl clenched her jaw and let herself be pulled along, throwing the rucksack over one shoulder.  _ Fine _ , she said to herself as Hornet headed to the Weapons Depot,  _ go along with their little soldier act. Besides, it’ll mean you won’t have to ask Snake to shoot you. _ Sometimes, Owl had found, the best way to deal with discomfort was to pretend to be comfortable. She had spent many hours lounging on her cot in her cell, acting out a nonchalance regarding her captivity that she didn’t really feel until one day she realized that it was easy to slip into a state of not really caring, so long as she was very careful to not think about reasons why she should care.  _ Don’t think about killing another human being _ , she said to herself.  _ Just think about surviving _ . 

At the Weapons Depot they handed her a Beretta M9 and a handful of magazines. She tucked the gun in the holster at her hip and tried to look like she didn’t suddenly feel like she was a ticking time bomb. It wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be; the hours in the gun range with Water Skimmer making her fire over and over and over until she stopped flinching every time she pulled the trigger helped.  _ It’s a machine _ , she told herself,  _ one that you know how to use. _

Next, Hornet took her the Mess Hall to collect a week’s worth of rations, packing those in on top of the clothes. “Alright,” she said, “you’re all set.” Noticing the hard line of Owl’s mouth, she grinned again. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to let anything happen to you.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Owl, “I’m just… nervous.”

“Everybody is their first time,” Hornet replied with a wink. “See you in a few.”

Not entirely sure what to do with herself or her pack, Owl wandered in the direction of Miller’s office. She entered after knocking to find Miller digging through some files. “Oh good,” he said absently, “you’re packed.”

“Yeah.”

“Then you can finish putting together the supply order and call it in before you go.”

“Okay.” She was a little confused. Miller regularly had her make the lists, but he always made the calls himself. “I decide to go into the field and suddenly you trust me not to order, I don’t know, poisoned peanut butter?”

Miller smirked at her. “Yeah, something like that.” He seemed to find the file he was a looking for and added it to a stack on his desk. “I need to get up to comms…”

“Women’s underwear,” she said suddenly, cutting him off. Miller looked at her blankly and she felt herself blushing. “The women, they need more underwear, especially the ones in the field,” she went on. “Wet, dirty underwear leads to vaginal infections, and that can be a serious medical…”

Miller raised his hand to cut her off. “I get it,” he said, turning toward the door. “Put it on the list; notify commissary of the change.” Then he was gone.

For the next couple of hours, Owl lost herself in paperwork. The calls to their suppliers went off without a hitch, and she drafted the notice to commissary about the change in the number of underwear allotted to each female soldier (thinking as she did that if more people knew about the sheer mundanity of keeping a merc company running, they wouldn’t find action movies nearly as exciting), leaving it prominently positioned on Miller’s desk for his signature. 

Then she put  _ Yellow Brick Road _ on Kaz’s turntable and enjoyed the last few minutes she would have completely to herself for the next week.

 

<><><><><>

 

Owl and her entourage arrived on site without any complications and with enough daylight left for her to look over the options for vantage points that Miller and Bear had already identified and fiddle with the audio surveillance equipment Appaloosa had packed for her, which really would make her job remarkably easier. “There’s a walkman, headphones, and an audio cable splitter in the case, too,” the R&D guy explained on the helipad before they left, “so you can record as you listen. I packed extra tapes and batteries, and backups of everything in case something breaks.” So Owl spent the last hour of light gazing down into the makeshift merc camp and listening through the headphones to the Spanish chatter as Bear and Hermit Crab kept guard -- not really looking for anything, just trying to get an idea of the layout and general feel of the place. When she placed the listening device back into its cushioned case, Bear asked, “This good?”

“Yeah,” she answered, standing carefully, “I’ll set up here tomorrow morning.” She gestured absentmindedly at the open-air kitchen below them. “Catch breakfast.”

When they got back to their temporary base of operations, a couple of miles from the merc camp, it was plenty dark, but Bear’s soldiers had a fire going and some warmed over rations to eat. A couple of Echo unit were on watch outside the edges of their camp, but the rest, along with Salamander and Walking Stick, the two Colombianos from the motorcade, were seated around talking. Hermit Crab settled in to join them while Bear checked in with the guards, and Owl made way to a place on the ground just outside the circle after grabbing one of the cans of food that was heating by the fire. Raccoon, an excitable young white man with a west coast accent who Snake had picked up out of a bandit camp cell after he’d tried to pickpocket the wrong person, was describing that first encounter with the legend. “I hadn’t slept at all that night, you know,” he was saying, gesturing wildly with his hands, “I was so sure they were going to cut off my hands first thing the next day. I never even heard him taking out, you know, the whole fucking camp. And then he came in, and I had been expecting a knife the whole time, been working myself up to asking them to just kill me instead, cause without my hands I’m just fucking useless. But when he came in with that gun,” Raccoon’s eyes glazed over a little with the memory, “I couldn’t tell if I was relieved or scared shitless.”

“Probably both,” quipped Walking Stick and a few chuckles erupted around the fire. 

The story ended like these stories always did -- a Fulton ride to Mother Base. Owl had been around long enough to know that telling the tale of how Big Boss chose you was a primary form of bonding for MSF troops. She could tell that most of Echo unit had heard Raccoon’s story before, but they weren’t annoyed by the retelling. In fact, it seemed to help them cohere as a unit, Walking Stick and Salamander included. Even volunteers like Hermit Crab and Coyote had been evaluated personally by Snake before being accepted into the ranks, and it was a reminder to them all that he believed they were capable of handling this mission, even if the mission was babysitting her while she people-watched. 

They told a few more stories as Bear returned from his rounds. Owl liked Bear, and Bear’s soldier liked him too. He was steady and calm, never spoke harshly, always listened to his troops when they had a concern, avoided any unnecessary danger. Echo wasn’t known for fancy shooting or daring infiltration, but they often provided support on intel ops, and Snake and Miller had put the unit together to be adaptable: Raccoon’s quick fingers, Giraffe’s honey pot routine, Hornet’s patience for waiting for just the right shot, Eel’s penchant for underwater feats of dexterity, and Elephant’s borderline-eidetic memory were matched with some reliable fighters and Bear’s careful planning. She was in good hands, not that she was particularly concerned with the very small risk of actual combat.

Salamander was telling his own kidnapping story. “I thought maybe my buddy Martin was taking a piss, so I was going to sneak up on him. I was less than a meter away, just staring at this one spot that looked funny, when I realized I was looking at a face. He said, ‘Boo,’ and the next thing I remember is waking up on base.”

“There’s no way the boss said ‘Boo’,” scoffed Eel. 

“I swear!” countered Salamander, and the vehemence of his claim made Giraffe start snorting laughter. “Really!” Owl felt frustration roll off him like a shock wave, but she knew he wasn’t lying. Or, at least, she knew that he genuinely believed what he was saying; true or false was a different thing from accurate or inaccurate when it came to how people felt about their experiences.

She half-listened to their talk, instead watching how the emotions among them shifted and flowed. When Eel pulled out a chocolate bar and started eating the slightly soft candy, she noticed a sharp stab of annoyance from Doberman in the other man’s direction, edged with the expectation of reciprocity. She started to avert her eyes, not wanting to pry, then found herself looking back, examining the little thread that ran between Eel and Doberman where they sat across the fire from her and wondering what had happened to cause Doberman’s little upset. She was so intent on this question that she was startled to hear her own name. “So, Owl,” Raccoon said, “did you really come in with Ocelot? Like,  _ the  _ Ocelot?”

She focused her gaze on Raccoon and vaguely aware of interest in other faces around her. “Um, yeah,” she started. “At least, that’s what I’m told. I was kind of out of it. But I know he was there at some point.”

“So did you work with him before MSF?” Raccoon went on excitedly. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Bear had started to feel a little exasperated with the younger soldier. “C’mon, kid,” he rumbled softly. “Not all of us are as excited to talk about our pasts as you are.” Along with his words, though, she noticed a hint of fear directed toward Miller. Fear of disappointment, maybe? Why would Bear be worried that Raccoon asking her about her past would disappoint Miller? Most of the time with soldiers, she had noticed, fear of disappointment had to do with orders and whether or not one was able to carry them out. So had Miller ordered Bear not to talk about her? 

As she tried to process all this, Raccoon grinned sheepishly and looked back and forth between Owl and his CO. “Sorry,” he said, “it’s just, you know,  _ Ocelot _ .” 

“I’d only met him a couple of times before he pulled me out of Afghanistan,” Owl heard herself saying. “Or at least, he told Snake it was Afghanistan.” Bear’s discomfort grew, and Owl felt herself frown a little. First Snake was all  _ Don’t feel guilty about what happened to you _ , then Miller was apparently ordering people not to pry into her origins? Did he realize how suspicious it was going to be when she spent three days on her belly in the weeds, staring at people and then just pointed at one and said, “That’s the mole”? 

“Shit,” breathed Raccoon. “What were you doing there?”

Giraffe seemed to be picking up on Bear’s agitation and said, “You’re so fucking nosy, Raccoon. She doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“If she doesn’t want to talk about it, she can say she doesn’t want to talk about it,” snapped Doberman, peering at Owl with interest and emoting a certain amount of approval for Raccoon’s inquisitive nature.

Owl was faced with a choice. If she said she didn’t want to talk about it, she was sure they would drop it; plenty of people at MSF said nothing of their lives before Mother Base. But they would also probably make some assumptions based on what she had said. She was fairly sure they all knew how shit of a soldier she was, so Raccoon would definitely spend some time churning out any number of fanciful stories to explain why she was in Afghanistan and why someone of Ocelot’s caliber would come to her rescue. Then, because Raccoon could never keep his ideas to himself, he’d get other people wondering too, until one day she’d have this aura of mystery around her, making her out to be so much more than the miserable, anxiety-ridden, over-empathetic woman that she was. 

Or she could tell them, and because she was telling Raccoon and Giraffe, it would really be like telling the rest of MSF. It would be like ripping a bandaid off, over so quickly. And they might hate her. They might fear her. But she was fairly sure that Snake would keep her around. 

Making her decision, Owl replayed Snake’s emphatic  _ Fuck them _ her her head, willing herself into Big Boss’s easy relationship with the rest of the entire damn world. “I was being held prisoner,” she said, hoping her voice would stay steady and maybe even cool. “Soviets captured me from some Cipher agents, who had also been holding me prisoner.”

Naming Cipher had exactly the effect she’d known it would; the previous tensions in the group faded away as they focused on a common enemy. If anything could buy her a little sympathy, it would be the fact that Cipher was her enemy too. So she went on. “I was one of Cipher’s ESP experiments. They’d taken me out to Afghanistan for an op, but things went bad. My handler and the rest of the unit were killed.” 

“ESP experiment?” said Raccoon, grinning madly. This was better than his wildest dream. “Like psychics?” 

“They were trying to grow telepathic abilities in the lab,” she answered, wishing for the first time that she could see how people felt about her, wondering if anyone was getting ready to put a bullet in her head. At the very least, Bear’s fear of Miller seemed to have subsided as she began talking of her own accord. “I was the first attempt, and enough of a success to warrant being used in the field.”

“So you’re a psychic?” asked Doberman, eyes shining in the firelight and gaze very intent on her. “Like a mind-reader?”

“I can’t read minds,” Owl said quickly. “I guess I’m empathic instead of telepathic. I see emotions, the things people feel about each other.” She looked around and saw relatively blank faces. “Like,” she continued quickly, “I can tell that Salamander genuinely believes that Snake said ‘Boo’ but I can’t actually look into his mind and see the memory.”

“He did say ‘Boo’,” Salamander grumbled quietly, but no one said anything in response.

Owl looked around, trying to see what was happening on faces instead of having threads to watch. Raccoon was obviously excited about this turn of events, and Doberman showed a keen interest as well, but most other people just looked kind of… confused.

“So you can see what we’re feeling right now?” asked Rat, who had been lurking at the edge of the discussion. 

Owl shrugged. “Kind of. I can see what you feel about each other, and about other people. But I can’t see what people feel about me, so I’m a little blind at the moment. One of you could be getting ready to stab me for all I know.”

Eel rubbed his eyes. “But I don’t get it. How can you see what people feel and it not be mind-reading? What’s the difference?”

Owl had asked herself that several times. “I think there is an element of mind-reading, but more than anything, I think I’m reading body language and other clues, just much better than most people. So I have to be able to see people to read them. And I can’t just figure out everything like I could if I was telepathic. So,” she floundered around for an example, one that was relatively innocuous. “So a few minutes ago, you started eating a chocolate bar, and when you did, Doberman got annoyed with you. If I were a mind reader, I’d be able to just dive into his head about find out why he was annoyed, but I can’t do that, so instead, I’d have to sit here and watch your interactions for a while, and then I might be able to offer some explanation.”

Eel handed Doberman what was left of the candy bar and said, “Fuck, man, I forgot. Sorry.” 

“This is why she's here mole-hunting,” Bear said, standing up and claiming all their attention, “and why we have to watch her back. Boss gave us a hell of a job, but if Cipher comes knocking, he expects us to blow out the door.”

Owl hadn't realized how much having all their attention on her had tamped down on the threads she could see until Bear’s words reminded the group of their commitment to Snake and reaffirmed their connections to each other, especially the Echo soldiers.

Bear kept talking, giving out orders for the night. “Raccoon and Doberman, you're on first watch, so go relieve Elephant and Hornet. Eel and Coyote on second, Giraffe and Rat on third. Hermit Crab and me will take fourth. The rest of you, get some sleep; we've got a long day of spying tomorrow.”

Soldiers moved around to follow orders, catching Bear's hint that all conversation regarding Owl was over. But instead of pulling out her bedroll, Owl got up to follow Bear as he stalked to the edge of the fire where the extra equipment was stacked. “What did Miller tell you?” she said quietly, not daring to hesitate in case she lost her nerve.

“Master Miller's orders were the same to me as they were to you,” Bear said placidly as he double checked the arrangement of the supplies, though Owl noticed a little spike of anxiety toward Miller. “The same as they were to everyone else in that briefing room.”

“He told you something else, and Raccoon made you nervous about it,” she pressed.

Bear gazed at her steadily for a moment, then sighed and dropped his eyes. “He told me about your ESP, about why you were on this mission. Then he told me not to breathe a word of it to anyone, that it was up to you if you wanted to talk about it.”

“Oh.”

Bear barked a laugh. “You take two minutes of idle conversation to put together the existence of secret orders and their basic parameters, and all you have to say is ‘oh'.” He shook his head, his mouth set in a thin line. “You're something.”

Owl wasn't sure how to respond to that, and Bear seemed happy enough to just let her wander away. She unpacked her bedroll at a distance from the rest of the MSF personnel, a few of whom were still chatting as they prepared to bed down, but suddenly the weight of everything that had passed -- the possibility that in the morning she would wake up to unfriendly faces and a swell of negative energy that she couldn't quite place because it was all directed at her -- hit her like a punch in the gut. The nausea was familiar, but she clenched her jaw and refused to give in; she had made a choice to not be guilty, and if they didn't like what she was,  _ fuck them _ . 

So she popped a couple of pills in her mouth, lay down in her sleeping bag, and focused her mind on the sound of Snake’s voice, on the slouch in his shoulders that said he couldn't care less -- on the way she would be when she was more like Snake -- until the diazepam kicked in and she drifted off to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning, Owl woke up to Hornet nudging her with her boot. It was still fairly dark, but Owl could see enough to know that Hornet was offering her a mug. “ _ Cafe _ ?” Hornet asked in a low voice.

“ _ Por favor _ ,” Owl answered, gratefully accepting the hot drink as she sat up. Hornet grinned her usual grin and tossed a wrapped food bar on Owl’s lap as well. “Protein bar for breakfast.” The latina moved back to the banked fire, then returned to sit on the foot of Owl’s bedroll without preamble, holding a mug and food bar of her own. “So last night,” she said in the same low voice, after taking a long first sip of her coffee, “Raccoon came to us with a crazy story about Cipher ESP experiments and how you can read minds.”

Owl sighed. “I can’t read minds,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “I read emotions. It’s different.”

She saw Hornet’s eyes get a little wide, then saw a flash of guilt run toward Raccoon. “Shit, I thought that little  _ cabron _ was fucking with us again,” she said. “I’ll have to apologize, I guess.”

Owl let the silence stretch for a moment. “And you’re okay with this?” she asked hesitantly, still feeling a little tense despite sleeping through the night  _ and _ waking up all in one piece the next morning. 

Hornet shrugged. “I saw some crazy shit before I joined up with the boss.” The thread between Hornet and the Sandinista kid Chico glimmered for a moment with patient affection and understanding. “You got good eyes like mine, you can see lots of crazy shit. Besides, Big Boss says you’re okay, you’re okay.”

They finished their breakfast in a companionable silence, with Owl relishing in the sense of relief that Hornet’s words brought. After swallowing her final mouthful of the dry food bar, Hornet said, “Bear wants me and Walking Stick to cover you today, so we’ll head out whenever you want.”

Owl glanced around, and for the first time noticed Walking Stick sitting on the other side of the camp, checking over his rifle in the growing light. “Yeah, okay,” she answered, downing the last of the coffee. “Give me ten minutes to collect my gear.”

Less than an hour later, Owl had the listening device set up on its tripod in front of her, while she lay propped up on her elbows, scope in hand and notebook and pen on the ground beside her. Walking Stick stood a few feet behind her, and Hornet was somewhere nearby, securing the perimeter or something. The mercs below were just starting to collect for breakfast, and Owl hit the record button on the walkman and lost herself in the web of relations.

Sometimes, mole-hunting was easy, when a leader commanded sufficient loyalty from their troops. Finding Zebra on Mother Base hadn’t been hard, considering the overwhelming passion for Snake that MSF was drowning in. At a merc camp, like this one, though, loyalty wasn’t usually what was keeping men around. It was easy to write off a handful of the people she saw as genuinely loyal to the  _ commandante _ /client, but the rest were harder to read. So, she watched, and when she saw something interesting happening with the emotions, anything particularly strong, negative or positive, she adjusted the listening device to capture whatever was being said by or to that person and jotted a note about the counter on the recording device along with her observations. Her goal for today was just to collect data, to get a feel for things, before she decided who to focus her attention on.

The tape had to be changed regularly, but Appaloosa had included plenty, which Owl carefully numbered as she went. She was halfway through her fifth tape when Walking Stick squatted down beside her. “Bear wants an update,” he said quietly. 

“Everything’s going fine,” she said absentmindedly, adjusting the listening device by a hair to catch some loud cursing by a shoddy looking gun range. 

“How much longer you want to be here?”

“‘Til I can’t see anymore.” That prickly skinny guy was feeling very, very angry toward the drill instructor. She scratched the number on the counter down and wrote “Skinny Prickles hates drill instructor” beside it.

Walking Stick stood and retreated, and Owl was vaguely aware that he was talking on the radio. He returned a minute later. “Bear wants to send fresh guys. You need Salamander?”

“Not right now,” she answered. “Maybe tonight.” She was left to her work until cassette five finished and she had started cassette six, then it was Doberman kneeling beside her. “It’s me and Elephant here now,” he said gruffly, setting a package wrapped in paper at her elbow. “Bear says you gotta eat something.”

The package turned out to be some kind of meat wrapped in a tortilla, which she ate as she was told. 

As the twelfth cassette came to a close, Owl decided it was getting too dark for her to start a new one; Poe had been disappointed to discover that she couldn’t read anything through night vision, so she was limited to daylight hours for outdoor work. Standing was harder than she was expecting, and she was grateful when Doberman caught her under the elbow to help her up. “You been there too long,” he grumbled. “Gotta stretch things out.” Then he helped her collect her gear, packing the listening device back into its case with the walkman and storing the tapes and notebooks in a bag in such a way as they wouldn’t rattle too much, and along with Elephant, they walked back to camp. 

Owl ate little, and instead poured over her notes for the moments on the tapes she wanted in translation. When she thought she knew what she wanted, she took the bag of tapes and the walkman and approached Salamander and Walking Stick. The latter perked up at her approach. “Time for us to teach you Spanish?” he asked. 

“Yeah, we’ll see,” she answered, sitting down and fiddling with the tape player until she found the right time on the counter. “So, I’ll just play the tape, and you tell me what their saying, okay?”

As soon as the tape started playing, the Spanish speakers within earshot started laughing. Owl looked around, confused; at this point in the recording, one of the men, whom she had dubbed Little Dick for his feelings of petty competition with pretty much everyone else in the camp, had fairly exploded with rage as one of the sergeants had yelled at him, but without his face ever moving a muscle, which was unusual given the bombastic style he had used to deride everything else in his immediate vicinity. Owl looked to Walking Stick, who looked vaguely embarrassed. Finally Salamander said, “He's describing all the ways he had sex with someone's mother, in great detail.”

“Ah,” Owl said, now understanding the reaction. She made a note in her notebook that Little Dick was apparently quite touchy about his mother, then began adjusting the tape again. 

Soon she and the Colombianos had a little knot of soldiers around them as the dramas of the merc camp played out before them. Emotions seemed to run high, for instance, whenever the men talked of each other’s mothers or the women at the local brothel, as some seemed more jealous than others over having to share their favorites. There were also at least a couple of closeted gay men, though no one but Owl could tell that from the audio recordings, and one clandestine relationship, complete with one lover fiercely defending the other from the bullying of their compatriots. None of this mattered to the mole-hunt, really, but Owl took careful notes anyway, since it all helped her better understand what something out of the ordinary would look like.

There were a few moments that held promise though. She had caught a couple of conversations about the recent hijackings and about the  _ commandante _ more generally, and felt confident she could find more of the same in the days to come. It looked like some of the lieutenants weren’t entirely happy with the way things had been going, though considering leaving a company because the jobs hadn’t been lucrative was not the same thing as spying. In an case, she felt like she had eliminated around ten of the men from the running due to their genuine loyalty to the  _ commandante _ , most of them young and naive with a couple older veterans who had been compadres for a long time, and that she had a few that she would watch more closely the next day.

As she wrapped up her notes for the night, she said to Salamander and Walking Stick, “I think tomorrow morning, I’ll just watch for a while longer, then tomorrow afternoon, I’d like to have one of you with me.” They agreed, looking over to where Bear was overseeing the proceedings for his input. “Whatever she says,” the CO grunted before turning his attention to Owl. “You think we’ll be ready to move in by the time the boss gets here?”

Owl shrugged. “Dunno yet, but I don’t see why not.” Bear just grunted again, but Owl saw a little tremor of hope for praise run along the man’s line to Snake. 

The next day started much the same, but with Raccoon waking her with coffee and a canteen of water. Eel and Raccoon took the first shift watching her as she watched the mercs, focusing her attention on some of the lieutenants who seemed most unhappy with their current situation, especially two she had dubbed Party Pooper (for his tendency to feel irritated by all forms of laughter) and Dog Man (named for the mutt that he kept at his side at all times). She also kept an eye on Little Dick and Skinny Prickles, though she had a feeling they weren’t actually all that interesting. Still, Little Dick’s burly fury and Skinny Prickles palpable disgust were very present.

Salamander came around noon, handing her a tin of beans and a couple of warmed up tortillas and waiting for instructions. She went over the basics of the listening device with him as she ate, and giving him the headphones, settled down on her elbows with her binoculars once again. She directed his attention to a small group of soldiers lounging besides a jeep, smoking, and listened to his rough translations as she watched, sometimes asking for more exact wording when something interesting happened. It quickly became apparent that one of these men was feeling very guilty, in particular toward another soldier. Owl kept expecting the talk to turn to some woman or another, but for once, the soldiers didn’t seemed interested in sex, instead discussing the relative merit of their most recent supply of weapons. The guilty man kept his glance firmly away from the man who was churning up such negative feelings, whom Owl dubbed Sparkle Teeth. There was a sudden spike in the bad feeling, even as Guilty Man laughed with the rest of the group at something someone else had said. “What just got said?” Owl asked hurriedly.

Salamander hesitated. “He just said that he liked his new rifle so much that he, uh, masturbated with it. It was a joke.”

Owl hummed, and jotted a note that Guilty Man was probably masturbating to thoughts of Sparkle Teeth. Salamander glanced down at her notebook, frowning. “You know that?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“But he just laughed at a joke.”

“He was sweating bullets as he did it, and he hasn’t looked at that one guy the whole time they’ve been standing around.”

Salamander huffed. “Is that even important?”

Owl shrugged. “Probably not. Honestly, I don’t care what he thinks about when he jerks it, but it does help me know that he’s not feeling guilty for other reasons.”

Salamander snorted. “Do you know what I think about when I jerk it?” he asked, half defensive and half curious.

Owl shrugged again. “Depending on where your emotions went when you were thinking about masturbation, then maybe. It be easier to tell who you’d actually slept with.” Salamander’s eyes widened at her words, and Owl quickly said, “Not that I’d tell anybody. That’s your own business. Plus, Big Boss would throw me in the ocean.”

Salamander didn’t say anything else about it, and Owl refocused their attention on a group unloading food from a recently arrived truck, Little Dick among them. When Owl witnessed the same cold fury again and Salamander confirmed that once again someone had taken a jibe at his mother, she wrote off Little Dick as a very angry mama’s boy and not a mole.

It started raining in the evening, and Owl continued watching for a bit, even after most of the men in the camp below retreated indoors, hoping that someone would sneak around furtively and look very molish. After a half an hour, though, she started to worry about the electronics, which could handle some wetness, but not a downpour. Salamander helped her pack up and they headed back to camp with the two guards, Giraffe and Coyote this time.  _ They are definitely fucking _ , though Owl when she caught a little glimpse of lust volley back and forth between them.

Tarps had been strung up among the trees, but there was no fire tonight. Someone had moved Owl’s gear under one tarp around the edge of the camp, and Hornet was there with her own stuff, eating something dried from her rations. Owl was fairly wet at this point and remembered Hornet’s advice about clothes, stripping down to her skin and putting on the dry stuff she had. That was one part of life at MSF that Friend and Poe had adequately prepared her for; after being routinely examined and left with no privacy for so much of her time with them, she had little shame about her body any longer, as long as she pretended that there was no one around who was interested in looking. She started going through her notes again, using a flashlight as the light dimmed and stretching her body where she sat on her bedroll.

“Hey Owl,” called Raccoon from where he was huddled under another tarp with Gazelle and Doberman, “you got any soap operas for us tonight?”

“You should have been there, Raccoon,” said Salamander. “She told me what a guy had been jerking off to earlier.”

“Seriously?” Raccoon’s voice went high with excitement. “Shit, that is cool!”

Owl looked at her notes. “I guess there are a few things we could listen to,” she said, noting a conversation that involved Party Pooper and another soldier she had started calling Whirlwind, for the way his emotions seemed to move so quickly. Holding her notes and the Walkman under her body to keep them dry, she quickly ducked under Salamander and Walking Stick’s shelter. They shifted around to make room Raccoon and Doberman as well, while Giraffe and Hornet joined Elephant and Coyote in the next shelter over. 

Owl just queued the tape and let it play a bit, following along in her notes and marking a few things as someone translated. It was a lot of the same, obscene jokes and traded insults, stories about women and nights of debauchery. Soldiers’ talk, she supposed. 

Then came the conversation between Party Pooper and Whirlwind. “The first man is saying that he's surprised the  _ commandante  _ is still able to line jobs up,” Walking Stick explained, referring to Party Pooper. “He says the  _ commandante  _ has a habit of hiring idiots. The second man says that he wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing went up in flames one night. The first man says maybe it would be best if it happened sooner rather than later, but the second man laughs and says he'd like to get at least one more payday.”

What had made Owl notice the exchange in the first place was Party Pooper’s sudden and intense rage, but now she was finding the sudden spike of fear from Whirlwind more interesting. It was worth paying closer attention to Whirlwind. 

It never rained hard, but the shower kept up all night, and Owl woke up feeling vaguely damp. With no fire, there was no hot coffee, so she made do with some dried meat before Walking Stick, Hornet, and Elephant escorted her to the ridge where she had spent the last couple of days. She started by focusing her attention on the little knots that formed as the mercs ate their breakfast, letting Walking Stick listen for anything he thought sounded worthwhile. By this point, she felt she had a sense of the web of the camp and while some flares of emotion would occasionally catch her eye, she knew what to expect from everyday conversation. Skinny Prickles was still a bit of a conundrum; he seemed to despise some of the soldiers while caring deeply about others, and all of it overlayed with a heavy helping of guilt. As farl as she could see, that guilt was often coupled with a certain defensiveness directed toward his sister, or at least a woman of around his age whom he felt familial ties to. It was possible that Skinny Prickles was selling out his fellow mercs for the good of this sister, but Owl wasn't sure yet. 

She also kept an eye out for Whirlwind, but it was several hours before he came outside, along with Party Pooper, Dog Man, and a few other lieutenants, suggesting that there had been a meeting. Party Pooper was livid, Dog Man seemed full of grim determination, especially any time he looked at any of the younger soldiers, and Whirlwind bounced back and forth between excitement and disappointment. Owl focused on Whirlwind's thread, finding the one leading back to the  _ commandante  _ tinged with disdain, which didn't really surprise her, and finding another thread leading off to someone Whirlwind thought of as… Casper. Casper? 

Owl let her mind drift a little, even shushing Walking Stick from his running commentary. The thread was slender, and it only seemed to really come into focus when Whirlwind was thinking about the  _ commandante,  _ but it was something strange. 

Then Elephant was crouching beside her, taking her attention. “Boss just arrived,” he said. “He wants a status update.”

“Then tell him to come here,” Owl snapped, pressing her binoculars against her face and trying to catch a glimpse of what she had been seeing in Whirlwind's network before. 

Elephant hesitated. “You want me to tell him that you'd rather be debriefed in person?”

Owl held out the hand not holding the scope. “Give me the radio.” When Elephant complied, she said into the device, “Snake, if you want a status report right this second, you'll have to come here.” Then she held the radio out again and felt Elephant lift it from her hand. 

She tracked Whirlwind through the camp, huffing a sigh when he disappeared into another building. She set the scope down and glanced at Walking Stick beside her, who hadn't said anything or even moved since she silenced him, as far as she could tell. When she did, though, she looked away just as quickly; a bright and shining line momentarily overwhelmed her senses. “Snake,” she said in acknowledgment. 

“Since you can't be bothered to use a radio,” Snake growled behind her. 

“I'm good right now, Walking Stick,” she said to the man beside her. “Tell Salamander I won't need him this afternoon.”

Walking Stick understood this as his cue to leave, and with a quiet “Boss” as he passed Snake, he headed back to their camp. Snake quickly took his place. “So,” he said, “SitRep?”

She passed the half full notebook to Snake and readjusted her position to watch the building Whirlwind had gone into. “I've got some leads,” she said, “and I've got one that's really standing out at the moment.”

Snake didn't say anything for a couple of minutes as he flipped through her notes. Eventually, he let out a sigh that almost sounded long-suffering. “I sent you to find a mole,” he said, “and all you have here is anger and fucking.”

Owl rolled her eyes a little. “It's a mercenary camp. What did you expect?”

Snake grunted in assent. “But what does it have to do with anything?”

“It doesn't necessarily. Sometimes you have to watch what's normal to see what stands out. Like Little Dick. I wasn't sure what his deal was until I figured out he's got serious mom issues. But before that, I thought he might actually hate everyone enough to sell them all out.”

“Alright, fair enough.” Snake slid onto his belly beside her with barely a sound, his shoulder pressing against hers. “So who's in the running?”

Owl hummed as she thought, eyes still focused on the door that Whirlwind had disappeared into. “Skinny Prickles runs so hot and cold, but I think that he maybe just has a lot of angst. He doesn't seem to really know anything. Of the  _ commandante’s  _ lieutenants, Dog Man and Party Pooper are the most disgruntled, but I'm starting to think that Dog Man might just feel old, tired of seeing kids get hurt, yada yada. He's got too much affection for the rookies for me to think he's leading them to the slaughter.” She paused to shift her gaze to Party Pooper, pointing him out to Snake as well. “Party Pooper is an asshole, and he doesn't like anyone here. He’s a good soldier, a lot of these guys look up to him, but he just hates everything. I honestly thought it was him, until just a little bit ago.”

“What changed your mind?” Snake asked, looking through his own scope. 

“Whirlwind is another one of the lieutenants. He's been hard to pin down. A little like Raccoon, actually.” Snake huffed in understanding, and Owl continued. “He wasn't even on my radar until an exchange he had with Party Pooper, in which Pooper said something about just burning the whole place to the ground, and Whirlwind said he wanted to get at least one more payday. Which is a very mercenary thing to say, but for a moment he was really afraid that Pooper might do it. So I started watching him this morning when all the bigwigs got out of a meeting, and I saw something weird.” She hesitated, realizing that her gut feeling might not sound that important to Snake.

Snake seemed to sense her thought. “Weirder than the fact that you see these things at all?” he said wryly. 

“It was a strand to someone he thinks of as Casper,” Owl blurted. “It's faint -- he doesn't feel close to this person -- but the line seems more concrete when he feels negatively toward the  _ commandante. _ ”

“Casper?” Snake said. “Like the ghost?

Owl nodded. 

“Like a CIA spook who would most likely be white?” Snake shook his head. “Seems kinda obvious, even for the CIA.”

“But that's why it makes sense,” Owl pressed. “I don't know his contact’s actual name or codename or whatever. I only know how Whirlwind  _ thinks _ of him. And Whirlwind seems like the kind of guy who would enjoy a little private joke.”

Snake mulled it over, then came to a decision. “If, by the end of the day, you still think it could be him, then we'll move in tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“Where's Whirlwind?”

“He went in that building. I'm waiting for him to come out.”

And Snake waited with her, with his own binoculars glued on the camp below. It was at least another hour before Whirlwind came out again. “That's him,” she announced, then let her mind go nice a blank while she looked for that ghost of his. The line was so fine, it was hard to see anything more than that it was there, but there was a little bit of greed and a little bit of fear. Owl also examined the line to the  _ commandante  _ more closely, not finding anger or hate as much as disregard; Whirlwind didn't dislike the  _ commandante  _ but he didn't like him either. But anytime he seemed to think about the  _ commandante _ , there was Casper in his mind. The ghost came through really sharply at one moment, as Whirlwind sat with a couple of guys eating an early supper, and Owl handed the ear buds to Snake. “What are they saying?”

After a moment, Snake began. “We're sending an extra unit with the next shipment,” he said as Owl watched Whirlwind's lips move. “Might hire some dogs too.” 

“Dogs?” one of the guys asked. 

“Yeah,” said Whirlwind's right hand man, who was actually sitting on his left. “Give us a better idea of what might be hiding in the trees.”

Another merc was shaking his head. “I don't know why we're still trying this.”

“Last time, says the boss,” said Whirlwind. “After this, he says we're gonna move onto something better. Now, this is still need-to-know, but word is the boss is in negotiations with some Brazilians who do helicopter drops instead of convoys.”

There was some general chatter, but Owl touched Snake's shoulder to stop him from translating. “It's him,” she said excitedly. “He’s trying to throw the scent off him when he leaks this new intel, and the whole time he was talking, he was expecting a big pay-off from Casper.”

Snake scratched his beard. “You sure?”

“About as sure as I can be.”

“Sure enough for us to take the next step? You can't put fingernails back on.”

That made Owl pause. In her focus on the search, she had forgotten that she was singling out a man for torture. She swallowed hard. 

Snake was watching her closely. “I don't want you to have any misconceptions about what we're doing here,” he said. “That man will undergo interrogation until he tells us what we want to know, and then he will be turned over to the client. If he's lucky, they'll kill him outright.”

“Yeah,” she said weakly, squirming on her stomach before turning to meet his eyes, “but that man is planning on putting the people who trust him through a firefight so he can make money. If he's the mole, those people deserve to pass their own judgment on him.” 

Snake nodded and started to get up. “I think we're done here.” 

Owl got up too, and shoved cassettes and equipment into cases. As she and Snake walked through the growing gloom, she said, “I want to be there for the interrogation.” Even in the dim light, she could see Snake's eyebrows shoot up. “If it's not him, I'll see it,” she went on. “It's my responsibility to get the right person.”  _ And to make you stop hurting the wrong one, if necessary,  _ she added to herself. 

Snake didn't say anything until they were almost back at camp. “Alright, if that's what you want.”

They spent that night with Snake explaining the procedures for the following day. The MSF troops were going in under the pretense of providing training on scouting and recon as well as combat, something Echo had done before. While they kept everyone busy, Snake would wait for an opportunity to extract Whirlwind for a little private conversation. Owl would be trotting at Snake’s heels as his assistant, hopefully completely ignored in the legendary Big Boss’s shadow.

As Bear went over instructions for Walking Stick and Salamander, Snake pulled Owl aside. “You still got a few blank tapes?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. We'll record the interrogation, but I don't want your voice on those tapes. You have something to say, you cut the tape off first, got it?”

“Yes sir.”

Snake scowled at her. “I think that's the first time you've called me sir.”

Owl shrugged. “I think that's the first time you've given me an order.”

Snake snorted. “I guess you're really one of us now.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: There is some vomit and some torture. Neither are particularly graphic, but be forewarned.
> 
> There's also some angst, but you already knew that, right?

Whirlwind, whose name was Gabriel Nunez, didn't really scream until Snake pried off the third fingernail. Luckily, the warehouse the client had provided for this stage of the operation was far enough away from the main camp that anyone who heard it would just as easily assume it was the local wildlife as one of their COs being tortured. Snake sat back on the stool he had placed opposite the chair where Nunez was confined and watched the man struggle to breathe through the pain. It didn't help that his nose was broken and still dripping blood. 

It was going about like Snake had thought it would; Nunez was still flatly denying being the mole, but Owl hadn't stopped Snake, so she must still be sure that Nunez was their man. Snake glanced back at where she stood in the shadows. Her face was pale, but her eyes were steady on Nunez, doing that thing where they seemed to be flicking around to look for things that weren't there. He turned his attention back to Nunez. "Who is your contact?" he asked in Spanish. 

Nunez gasped and sputtered before answering. "I didn't do it. I swear." 

Snake made a show of sighing heavily as he stood and closed the gap between them until his face was inches from Nunez's bloody one. "I'm sure you're good enough at math to realize that you still have seventeen nails left. I hear the toes hurt even more than the fingers. Let's find out." 

Nunez was two toenails short when Snake heard Owl move behind him and the click of the tape recorder being shut off. He turned to see her waving him over. "Ask him about his _copo de nieve,_ " she said when he was close enough to hear her low voice. 

" _Copo de nieve_?" He wrinkled his brow. "Snowflake?" 

Owl shrugged. "It's someone he's scared for, someone he doesn't want you to know about." 

Snake grunted and reached down to turn the recorder back on before returning to Nunez. "Tell me about your little snowflake," he said, adding an extra layer of menace to his voice. 

The change that came over Nunez was immediate; abject terror flashed in his eyes as he said, "She doesn't know anything! Leave her out of this!" 

Snake shrugged callously. "I have to get answers somehow," he said, "and you're not being forthcoming." 

"She's just a child! She doesn't know anything!" 

"I'll be the judge of that." 

"Please," Nunez pleaded. "Please, I managed to keep her from _la CIA_. Please don't bring her into this." 

Snake sat down on his stool. "Then start talking." 

It didn't take long. When Snake was sure Nunez had told him, and consequently the tape recorder, everything there was worth knowing -- about his contact in _la CIA_ , what he had told him, how the information drops happened -- he shut off the cassette and patted Nunez's cheek. "Your little girl is safe with us." 

As soon as he and Owl were out of the building, he heard the young woman spill her guts on the ground, coughing and heaving for a full minute. Snake just watched, handed her his canteen when she was done so she could rinse her mouth. "Sorry," she muttered as she accepted it. 

"Everyone pukes after their first interrogation," he answered. 

"Even you?" she said skeptically, returning his canteen after spitting out a mouthful of water. 

He grinned a little at the memory. "Twice." The Boss had laughed at him, but he had been too busy to mind. But now wasn't the time for nostalgia. "The part of the tape where we talk about his daughter. Record over it. Make it sound like a glitch in the recording or something." 

"That's who she was? His daughter?" Owl asked as she began fiddling with the device. 

Snake grunted. "It's standard procedure for CIA operatives to hold a family member hostage when they plant a mole. Nunez had managed to hide his snowflake from them. No need for the _commandante_ to know either." Snake scratched at his beard. "You saved us a lot of time," he said, thoughtfully, "and him a lot of pain. Would you do it again?" 

"An interrogation?" she said. 

Snake nodded. "You knowing the right name to give us some leverage, that's useful. It would mean more people keeping more body parts." 

He expected hesitation, but she was steady when she said, "Yeah, I'd do it again." 

Snake had Kaz send out the pick up choppers to the mercs' base -- an arrangement he had already made with the client -- before turning over the slightly doctored tape and his report to the _commandante_. They were back at Mother Base before midnight, the soldiers clustered around and at attention after the pilots had dropped them at the helipad, waiting to be dismissed. Snake looked around the group. "Good work, all of you," he said. "You've got tomorrow morning off. Dismissed." He turned to Owl, who was still lurking just behind him. "Except you. We go to debrief with Kaz." 

She nodded and followed him without a word to Kaz's office, where the XO was waiting. "Well?" said the blond as Snake settled into a chair and Owl dropped her pack on the floor to begin digging in it. 

"Client will be wiring payment tomorrow, along with our bonus for a successful interrogation," Snake said, pulling a cigar out of a pocket and watching Owl extract a box full of cassettes and her now-battered notebook. "Not to mention that Owl has something like 36 hours of audio surveillance and detailed notes about the sex lives of everyone in that damn camp." 

Owl blushed a little but handed the notebook over to Kaz, who just raised an eyebrow as he accepted it. She set the box of tapes on his desk and then took a chair herself. Kaz flipped through the notes, snorting a laugh. "Really?" he said. "Someone called Short Stack is jealous of someone else called Jumpy Pete because Short Stack's favorite prostitute seems to like Jumpy Pete more." 

Owl scowled. "You could fill your own notebook, Miller." Kaz frowned at her, glaring through his aviators, but Owl was undeterred. "I see most clearly what's most immediate on their minds, which is usually who they want to fuck and who they want to punch." 

"Whatever," said Kaz, setting aside the notebook. "You got the job done. I'll turn the tapes and your notes over to the Intel team. Anything else you want to add?" 

Owl tapped her fingers against her thigh. "A lot of those guys are unhappy, and I don't think finding the mole is going to help much. Could be a good place for recruiting." 

Kaz looked over at Snake. "Any talent?" 

Snake shrugged. "The younger guys are pretty average, but some of the veterans could be worthwhile." 

"Dog Man," said Owl looking over at him. "We want Dog Man." 

Snake nodded. "Yeah. Don't know if he'd want to do much field work, but he'd make a good instructor." 

Kaz looked between the two of them, then shook his head. "Whatever, I'll make sure they get our number. Anything else?" Owl shook her head. "Alright," Kaz went on, opening a drawer in his desk and pulling out a prescription bottle which he set in front of Owl. "Your bonus. You can get refills at the Med Bay whenever, but it's up to you to regulate the dosage." 

Owl looked at the label on the bottle, the opened it to pour a couple round white pills onto her palm to examine them. "Thanks," she said, returning the pills and screwing the cap back on. 

"You earned it," Kaz replied. "You're dismissed. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon." 

Owl left with her pack and Snake finally lit the cigar he'd been toying with through the whole conversation. Kaz raised an eyebrow at him. "Dog Man?" 

"The guy had a mutt that followed him around everywhere," Snake answered, relaxing deeper into his chair as he smoked. "It's in her notes." 

"Yeah, I'm sure it is." Kaz flipped through the notebook again absently. "How'd she do?" 

"Threw up after the interrogation." 

"Everybody throws up their first time," Kaz said before looking up in surprise. "Wait, you took her to the interrogation?" 

Snake shrugged. "She asked. Said she wanted to be sure she got the right guy. And, damn Kaz, she was good. Just stood there watching for a while and suddenly, she plucks a name out of thin air. Not even a name, a pet name, and I say that name and the guy just caved. And he wasn't going to be easy. I was ready to go at it all night, but somehow she found just the right button to push..." Snake shook his head, trailing off. "Next interrogation job, you send her with Stingray." 

"And she'll do it?" Kaz said skeptically. 

"Said she would. I think she's starting to get some idea of what she can do with this power if hers without the restrictions Cipher put on her. Hell, you could even call it humanitarian work, preventing a lot of pain and suffering by cutting the interrogation short." He puffed on the cigar again, and maybe it was feeling of having something in his mouth, but he felt suddenly aware of how alone he and Kaz were, how thirsty he felt for Kaz's lips. He kept talking, but he let his eye travel up and down his XO's body a bit. "Bear said she told the unit about her skills, about Cipher. Said she even knew about your orders to him to keep it quiet. I think it scared him a bit." 

"And the others?" Kaz asked, standing up and pulling at his scarf, exposing more of his throat as he rounded his desk to lean next to Snake's thigh. Snake grinned a little; it looked like Kaz was just as thirsty. 

"No worries. Raccoon lost his head a little…" 

"That boy loses his head over everything," Kaz scoffed. "Still, once word is out around the base, we might as well assume that Cipher knows we're holding their pet." He reached down to pull Snake's cigar to his own lips for a moment, his eyes staying on Snake's as he sucked gently. 

"We'll worry about that later," Snake said, standing suddenly to grasp Kaz's hip with his free hand. "Right now, I just want to get inside you." 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The next interrogation Owl did took longer than the first one; with no background information on the target, she had to sort through everything starting when she walked in the room, but eventually she found a name for Stingray to try and that seemed to end things. Once again she threw up as soon as they were out of the room, this time into a trash can in the hallway, while being watched by some strangers. Stingray had the good grace to stand in front of her, mostly blocking their view, but she definitely heard a snarky comment about women who thought they could be soldiers. She had glared at the man, and seeing a glimmer of a line, had snapped, "No wonder your wife left you." That had wiped the smirk off his face. 

"It's okay if you're squeamish," Stingray said as they waited for their ride back to Mother Base. "It's not necessarily good to get use to that sort of thing." Owl had been nervous about working with Stingray after their unpleasant first encounter, but she had found that outside the interrogation room, he was a fairly soft-spoken man. 

"It's not so much the physical stuff," Owl explained. "It's the emotional turmoil in the room. It's just…" She trailed off. There was no way to explain it. But Stingray just nodded like he understood. 

The fluoxetine had been doing exactly what she hoped it would, bringing the threads into sharper focus while helping her keep calm. She saw more, but cared less. It didn't hurt that her skills were now common knowledge around the base and since she had never really fraternized with the other soldiers anyway, she couldn't even tell if people were avoiding her, though she did assume that the fights Hornet kept getting into had to do with her. 

She was a couple of days back from another mole hunt with Echo unit, sorting through the most recent shore leave requests in Miller's office when the phone rang. The XO answered a bit more cheerful than usual -- you didn't need Owl's senses to see that he was practically glowing, almost like a man in love, though Owl would never suggest such a possibility. However, the second a voice came on the other end of the line, his face fell into a hard scowl. "What do you want?" 

And Owl could see that the one person Miller's attention was focused on was Ocelot. 

The caller talked for a minute, Miller's face contortions in different forms of anger the whole time. Eventually he said, "I'd have to run this by John." 

Now _that_ was interesting. Owl had seen that Miller was thinking of Snake more frequently as "John," but she'd never heard him actually say the name. If it was, in fact, Ocelot on the phone, then it would be safe to assume that, first of all, Ocelot knew Snake's name was John, and secondly, that Miller wanted Ocelot to know that he knew Snake's name was John. It was a little power play on Miller's part, an attempt to establish the closeness of his relationship with the boss. But the thread from Miller to Ocelot didn't necessarily show jealousy, or maybe it did -- it was writhing a little too much for Owl to see anything clearly. 

She was snapped out of her reverie by Miller snapping at her. "Go find Snake. Tell him he has a phone call." 

Owl scurried at the intensity of the request, taking a quick look at the clock. At this time of day, Snake was most likely to be overseeing the advanced CQC instruction, if he was on base, so she made her way along the walkway that led to the training platform. Sure enough, he had one of the combat soldiers in a chokehold, giving detailed comments while two others looked on, a couple dozen other personnel sparring around them. "The thing you have to be careful about with interrogation from this position," he was saying, "is to cut off enough oxygen to make the target pliable but not forgetful." 

"Boss!" Owl called, and Snake looked up without releasing his grip on the somewhat concerned soldier in his grasp. "Miller wants you in his office for a phone call." 

Snake left his trainees without saying a word to follow her. "Any idea who it is?" 

"He didn't say," Owl answered smoothly. Sidestepping questions about what she saw from MSF staff was making her a better liar. 

Snake wasn't fooled. "Any idea who it is?" he repeated. 

Owl hesitated just a moment. "I think it might be Ocelot," she said as they started back over the walkway. 

Snake didn't say anything, but his pace picked up just a hair and that put Owl on edge just a bit as she realized exactly what Ocelot might be calling about -- her. Her suspicions were confirmed when she started to follow Snake into Miller's office and Miller glared at her and said, "Wait outside." 

So she did, leaning against the wall right outside the office door, focusing on standing perfectly still and quiet to keep herself from fidgeting and speculating on what Ocelot could want. She had known as soon as she started doing the mole hunts that if Cipher didn't know what had happened to her, they would now. Maybe Ocelot was just confirming that. Maybe Cipher was already concocting a plan to get her back. Or maybe Cipher had found out Ocelot's role in her escape and he was looking for protection. 

She watched a guard up on one of the command platform towers, walking from one corner to the next, always pausing to sweep his gaze over the platform and the nearby walkway, paying special attention to the stairs that led under the walkway to the struts. He had made three and a half circuits before Miller stuck his head out the door and told her to come back in. The phone was still off the hook, set with the receiver down on the desktop, and Miller was definitely mad at Snake, who stood leaned against the desk with his arms crossed over his chest. "Ocelot wants to hire you," the boss said in a low voice, probably to keep the man in question from overhearing. 

Miller snorted beside her. "This is a bad idea, boss." 

Snake just blinked languidly before continuing to speak in Owl's direction. "It sounds like basic recon work. You can talk to him about the details. Kaz is fairly certain that this is a ruse to get you back to Cipher, either by Ocelot spiriting you away as soon as you're in his reach or because you'll go willingly as you've been a plant here all along." 

Waves of fury came from Miller at hearing his concerns voiced so nonchalantly. 

"Now," Snake went on as if his XO and lover wasn't planning to bludgeon him, "I find the latter hard to believe, but after Paz," he grimaced at this, "I can see why Kaz has his concerns. And I find the former hard to believe because Ocelot knows we would come down on him like the hammer of God if he tried it. In fact, I think Ocelot stands to lose more by having you around, especially if he's not as ready to cut ties with Cipher as he says." Snake scratched his nose. "Could be a good chance for us to get some intel on what some of the Soviet higher-ups are up to. You wouldn't have any MSF back-up on this. You'd take a civilian flight into Europe and meet Ocelot there. He'd get you into the Soviet Union and back out again." Snake looked at Owl steadily, but she could see how much he was working to avoid feeling anything toward Kaz, guilt flaring up to be taken over by anger before being squashed altogether, only for the cycle to begin again. 

"I'll talk to him," Owl said, non-committal, though she could tell by the way Kaz glared at her that he did not consider it to be a neutral move. 

Snake gestured toward the phone and stepped away from the desk. Owl sat in one of the chairs and held the receiver to her ear, taking a deep breath before she spoke. "Hello, Ocelot," she said. 

"I was wondering if they'd even let me speak to you," Ocelot replied lazily. "To be honest, I expected Miller to slam the receiver down any second." 

"Well, I'm here now." 

"How do you like MSF? I hear you got a new codename." 

Ocelot sounded like he was just making a social call, like he was catching up with an old friend. It annoyed her. "What's this job, Ocelot?" 

He chuckled, a low noise that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up a bit. "Fine, we can get to business. There's a group of officials from various branches of the Soviet machine meeting for a little weekend getaway in one of the state-owned winter lodges. Three men, one woman, and whatever companions they choose to bring. Maybe spouses, maybe not." 

"And what am I looking for?" Owl asked. Eight people would be easy, even if they couldn't get good audio surveillance. 

"Leverage," Ocelot answered. "I'd like to know some things that they know, but for that I'll need some information of my own." 

"So you just want me to find things to blackmail them with?" 

"I could do that on my own. What I'm looking for is something more nuanced. Where their deepest loyalties lie. Which one would be easiest to put in my pocket. I want to know all their hopes and dreams." His voice was tinted with a hint of a drawl that made her just a bit homesick, but she pushed the thought away with something like revulsion. 

"And why should I work this job for you?" she asked, pleased that her voice sounded bored and distant. 

"Usually mercenaries work for money," he said drily. 

"I'm more of a consultant." 

He chuckled again. "There's also the intel involved. Not to mention that I have reason to suspect that one of these targets has been in contact with Friend." 

Her heart jumped and her jaw clenched, but she didn't otherwise move. Given that neither Snake or Miller had mentioned that fact before, it would seem that Ocelot hadn't told them, saving a juicy tidbit for her. "Is that so," she said smoothly, but her mind was racing. Why would Ocelot not want them to know? 

Ocelot hummed an affirmative. "Now, I don't know what your plans for the future are, but it couldn't hurt to know exactly who your enemies are, now could it?" 

Owl chewed her lip, trying to think this through. It was possible Ocelot wouldn't say anything about Friend because it would make it more likely for Miller or Snake to veto the whole thing from the get-go. It would also mean giving them a piece of information that could potentially be used against him -- if the target had some affiliation with Friend, Ocelot had lost a bargaining chip, but if he didn't, then Ocelot had some kind of ulterior motive for wanting her off Mother Base. 

While part of her was trying to be rational, the part of her that both feared and loathed Friend was chomping at the bit. Owl knew that Friend had friends, and she didn't like not knowing who those friends were, or what parts of the world she should avoid. Even just a little hint of intel could get her on her way to mapping those things out. 

"Tell me about the set-up," she said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Miller's mouth tighten even more. She turned so he was out of her view. 

Ocelot's voice sounded brighter now that it seemed he had made a little headway. "The winter lodge is in a popular tourist area, though it's out of the way. We'd set up surveillance in the surrounding mountains." 

"So I'd mostly be spying in windows? That almost never works out, you know." 

"They'll be outdoors enough. Hiking, skiing, the hot tub… you'll have plenty of opportunities." 

"And I'll be on my belly in the snow all day?" 

She could hear the grin in his voice when he said, "I'll keep you warm." 

Owl shivered, but she refused to consider why. Instead, she said, "Hang on for a minute." 

Putting the phone back down on the desk, she turned back around to the two men behind her, ignoring the threads between them. Miller's face didn't change, but Snake raised an eyebrow. "Well?" 

"I want this job," she said simply. "The intel is worth it." 

Snake grinned, clearly pleased. "I'll see what I can do about an extraction plan, just in case," he said. "I know more of Ocelot's boltholes than he thinks I do." He looked at Miller. "Kaz, you wanna set up the contract?" 

Miller, who hadn't said anything in a long time, finally exploded. "Set up your own damn contract!" he yelled, marching to the door. "I wash my hands of this shit!" They could hear his boots stomping all the way down the stairs. 

Snake looked at Owl in a way that suggested he was trying to look unconcerned, but that underneath he was a little lost. "Okay," he said slowly, "I guess we'll set up the contract." 

Owl pulled out the appropriate forms while Snake got back on the phone with Ocelot, negotiating payment and who would be providing what equipment. They filled out the forms with one of Ocelot's pseudonyms, though it was really all just for show; if Ocelot was going to slip off without paying, no contract would hold him to it. The plans for the equipment were more detailed; MSF would supply the audio surveillance gear as long as Ocelot could guarantee they would get it across Soviet borders, which he assured them would not be a problem. Ocelot would, in turn, supply everything Owl would need for her trip, including cold weather gear. 

Things were going smoothly, even without Miller. They had just finished going over which flights Owl would take to get to Berlin when Snake's face suddenly contorted. He coughed and handed the phone to Owl. "He wants to talk about your cover?" he said. 

Owl took the phone with furrowed brows. "Yeah?" 

"I was just asking your bra size," Ocelot drawled. 

Owl's eyebrows shot up up. "Excuse me?" 

"We're going to be posing as newlyweds. People never want to bother newlyweds. So your suitcase will need to include appropriate items." 

"And I can't bring my own?" 

"They'll need to be Soviet-made." 

That actually made sense. She noticed that Snake had suddenly found the top shelf of Miller's bookcase incredibly interesting. "36C," she said, willing herself to not be embarrassed and feeling her face flush anyway. Stripping in front of her fellow soldiers was easy, but talking about her body in terms of numbers was too close to talking about her body in terms of rankings. 

"And your hips?" Ocelot went on. 

"Uh," she said, pulling at the waist of her pants until she could see the sizing information printed inside. "These pants say 40 inches." 

"Height?" 

"Five-two." 

"Eye color?" 

"What does that have to do with anything?" 

"For your travel documents, to go through Berlin." 

"Oh, brown." 

"Hair still brown too?" 

"Yeah." 

"Alright, then," Ocelot said, "I guess I'll be seeing you in a few days." 

"Yeah, I guess so." 

Owl handed the phone back to Snake, who held it to his ear once more. He grunted at something Ocelot said, then listened, then said, "Yeah, I guess we'll see." 

After he hung up the phone, Snake looked down at the papers in front of him. "I can't believe Kaz left me to deal with this mess," he said. 

Normally Owl wouldn't even consider talking about the things she saw, but Snake wasn't the most emotionally savvy person, and really, it was bad for everyone for Miller to be in a snit. "I think he's jealous," she said. 

Snake looked at her impassively. "Jealous," he repeated. 

"Of Ocelot, of how long he's known you. Of how much you seem to trust him." 

Snake snorted a little. "I trust Ocelot to be predictable," he said, "and that's about it." 

"Doesn't look that way to Kaz." 

Snake grunted, fiddled with a seam on his pants. "You know you'll be spying on Ocelot just as much as for him, right?" 

Owl smiled tightly. "Yeah, I know. I think he knows too." 

"Which is the one thing that worries me." He shook his head and heaved a sigh. "This espionage shit is one of the reasons I left." 

Owl didn't say anything, just watch as a few of Snake's threads twisted and burned: the one to Zero, barbed with betrayal; the one to The Boss, heavy with regret; the one to someone he thought of as EVA, equal parts affection and anger. But the line to Ocelot was the one she was looking for, and there was something there that was almost like paternalistic worry edged with irritation and exasperation and just a little hint of fear. 

But then Snake stood up suddenly, looking her over. "You need a haircut." Owl's hand flew to her head; the buzz cut Poe had maintained when she was Cipher's lab rat had grown into an unruly mop, but she hadn't thought much of it. Snake smirked at her reaction. "Be in the gym at 1700; I'll do some specialized CQC training with you before you go." 

And Snake marched out the door. 


	8. Chapter 8

Kaz had stomped his way around Mother Base, ignoring the salutes and worried looks from the staff, until he found himself leaned against the backside of the Mess Hall, looking out over the Caribbean. He glared at a few sea birds that settled on the railing in front of him until they took off. It was fortunate for them; Kaz's hand was hovering over his sidearm as he mused that shooting a couple would make him feel better. 

He was fully prepared to bite the head off the poor MSF member who rounded the corner, probably for a goddamn smoke break in the middle of their goddamn shift, when he realized that it was Snake. "Done making your deal with the devil?" Kaz sneered as Snake sat on a crate beside him, just as casual as he'd been in the office, like this was what he did every fucking day. 

"We're making a pretty penny on this," he said. "I figured you'd be happy about that." 

Kaz snorted. "Sure, if we actually get paid. And, you know, not sold out to Cipher." 

A moment's silence, then Snake said quietly, "It wouldn't be the first time." 

Kaz felt heat flood to his face, and he whirled about to jam a finger into Snake's shoulder. "You gonna hold that over me every time I disagree with a call you make?" he snarled. "Then you can find yourself another XO." 

Snake looked back at him placidly. "Merely pointing out that it wasn't the end of the world." 

Kaz huffed and moved away to lean on the railing, looking out to the horizon. "What do you want, Snake?" 

He heard the click of a lighter and the sounds of Snake settling himself in, then the acrid scent of cigar smoke drifted around him. Kaz both annoyed and aroused by the smell, which annoyed him even more. "I want to tell you a story," Snake said after taking a drag, "about the last person I slept with." 

Kaz's body went stiff. He knew it was unfair -- Snake was all too aware of his previous partners -- but that didn't stop the churning in his stomach or the way his hand tightened on the railing. 

Snake went on like he hadn't noticed. "I'd been working with her during a mission. We had exfiltrated the hot zone, had some time to kill before our pick-up. She was pretty. Blonde," Snake reflected. "Nice body…" 

"You gonna give me a play-by-play?" Kaz interrupted waspishly. He was pretty sure Snake was teasing and he didn't appreciate it. 

"I woke up the next morning to discover that she had drugged me, fucked me, then run off with the intel I'd just gone through hell to retrieve," Snake finished, and his tone was hard, like he didn't appreciate Kaz's attitude either. 

"If I had a nickel," Kaz snarked back. What the hell was the point of this? 

"That was ten years ago, Kaz." 

Kaz's first thought was, _How does a man go ten years without getting laid?_

Then, Kaz's moment of revelation hunched him over like a punch in the gut. Snake hadn't trusted anyone enough in ten years to get laid. Until him. 

Shit. 

When the roar in his ears started to subside, Kaz turned around. Snake was calmly smoking,watching some seagulls dive-bomb each other as they fought over a scrap of something. Kaz swallowed, opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. There was nothing to say. Snake had already forgiven him. 

Snake broke the silence. "I've known Ocelot that whole time. I think I know him about as well as anyone. I've given up trying to understand _why_ he does the things he does, but I follow my gut when it comes to predicting _what_ he'll do. It's not trust as much as an assessment based on prior experience. But you," Snake said as his eyes came to rest on Kaz, "I trust you with my life. And I know you're mad, and maybe you should be, but don't be mad because of some screwed up version of events you have in your head. Be mad because maybe I made a bad call." 

Then there was a moment: Snake held Kaz's gaze, his face hard and his eye piercing, daring Kaz to talk back. But Kaz found he couldn't. Oh he was still mad; he was furious that Snake hadn't given his concerns more than the most cursory of examinations and he was even more furious that the whole deal had been slapped together so hastily and based on nothing more than Ocelot's word and Snake's gut. But for the first time in their partnership, Snake was asking for Kaz's trust. And Kaz didn't really want to say no. Couldn't say no. 

But before he could marshal these thoughts into anything coherent, Snake was stalking across the platform, his back firmly to Kaz. 

  


* * *

  


Snake had already been in the gym for an hour when Owl showed up at 1700 sharp. He'd gone there hoping that the heavy bag would take his mind off (Kaz) things. The physical activity at least pushed the most irritating thoughts to the back of his mind, but they still circled around like vultures just waiting for him to give up the ghost: What was it about the situation that made Kaz fly off the handle like that? Why was his XO acting so damn irrational? 

What if he had fucked it all up for good? 

And that same voice that taught him to duck and jab was chanting, _enemies in relative terms...personal feelings...greatest sin…_

Owl's appearance at least ended the introspection, as muted as it might have been under his focus on his arms and legs, hands and feet. She looked tentative as she approached him -- no telling what kinds of emotions she saw flying off him right now -- but to her credit she didn't flinch when he looked her way. "Let's go over to the mats," he said, without preamble, grabbing a towel as he followed her to the other side of the gym to wipe the sweat from his face and arms. 

He started by attacking her a few different ways, evaluating her responses. She hadn't been training long enough for the blocks to be second nature and she was slow, but she moved efficiently, like she was focused on getting her limbs in just the right places. After a few minutes, Snake came to a decision. "I'm going to teach you how to kill a guy with a knife." 

Owl's face went blank in a way that told Snake she was wrestling with an idea, but she just said, "Okay." 

"If you get captured, a knife is often better than a gun," he explained, finding a couple of rubber training knives in a storage chest, "quieter, no worries about ammo, and generally easier to get your hands on. Unarmed, you don't really stand a chance taking a trained soldier head-on, or even if you got the drop on him, but with a knife, you could get by, as long as you didn't attract to much attention and kept to one target at a time." 

Owl nodded and took the knife he offered her, hefting it in her hand to get a feel for the weight. 

"Now," Snake said, moving behind her, "normally if you came up behind a target, the most efficient way to subdue them is to clamp one hand around the face and over the mouth and slit the throat." He demonstrated, covering Owl's mouth and nose and swiping his knife across her throat. She hissed a little; the knives stung, but that was part of all successful teaching tools. "But you're going to be shorter than pretty much everyone," he went on, "making this a bad option for you. Instead, you'll want to try to get the blade into the spinal column at the base of the neck." He pressed the tip of his knife into soft flesh just above the bony protrusion that marked the end of the cervical vertebrae. "You have to hit it with some force, but as long as you force the blade in horizontally, you should do enough damage to the spinal cord to drop him." 

Snake had her start on the practice dummies, the ones that were about as dense as an actual body, just to get a sense of how much pressure it would take for her to get a real knife into someone. Then they worked on getting the placement just right, with her sneaking up behind him as quietly as she could -- of course Snake could hear her, but she was actually pretty light on her feet -- then bringing the practice blade down on the exact spot without any real force behind it. She would miss, Snake would make her feel around his neck again until she got a sense of the bones under her fingers, then she would try again. 

It was nearly 19:00 before he was satisfied that she had a fighting chance against a man of his build, but that was only going to get her so far. "We're going to the Mess Hall," Snake announced. "Bring the practice knife." 

As he expected, the mess was crowded. "Wait here," he ordered Owl as they entered, then wandered around tagging staff of various heights who seemed at least close to done with their meals. "What's up, Boss?" asked Raccoon when Snake pulled the man to his feet. 

"Training exercise," Snake answered briskly. "Get Vulture and Gila too." 

He'd tried to be stealthy about it, but soon the whole mess seemed focused on the collection of soldiers he'd ordered to the door. He could see Owl lurking in the corner, obviously nervous about what was going on, and briefly, Snake considered having them all go outside for the exercise, but really that was just a waste of time and Owl needed to be able to perform in high pressure situations. He stood in front of the selected men and women, all of varying heights and builds and said, "You're here to participate in a training exercise." The whole mess had gone from raucous to a low hum of chatter when he started talking, even though he hadn't raised his voice. "Owl is learning how to kill people with a knife." There was a sharp bark of laughter from one corner of the room that Snake opted to ignore. "All you have to do is stand there and not move when she stabs you with the practice blade. Got it?" 

A chorus of "Yes Boss!" was his reply, and he took a moment to arrange them in a rough line before stepping behind their backs. "Don't spend too much time looking," he told Owl. "You won't have time when it matters. You have to learn to do this by instinct." 

Blushing a bright red, Owl went for Raccoon first, probably because she was most familiar with him. The young man started when he felt the blade but otherwise held still until Snake could examine her work. "A little high, but it would do." He made her redo Gila over and over until she had figure out exactly how high she had to reach on the towering man. Pretty soon, most of the soldiers had returned to their meals, but a few at the table closest to them cheered her on. "C'mon, Boss," one of them called, "I'm pretty sure even Gila can't take that many stab wounds." 

Eventually, Owl had managed to "kill" everyone in the line-up and Snake dismissed his practice dummies. Raccoon clapped her shoulder in congratulations. "New mission?" he asked excitedly. 

"Yeah," Owl said, fiddling with the knife and looking sheepish. 

"Echo going too?" 

"It's a solo op," Snake interjected. "Sorry, kid." 

"Aw well," Raccoon answered good-naturedly. "At least you know how to kill people with knives now. Hey, you want some food?" 

Owl looked to Snake for permission to be dismissed, but her eyes told a different story. "We've got more work," Snake said. Owl's relief was evident, with her shoulders just perceptibly sinking away from her ears. "Have the cook make us up to meals to go, will you?" He took another look at Owl before calling at Raccoon's retreating form. "And two of the ginger beers." 

Food in hand, Snake led Owl back to the gym, where he sat down without preamble on one of the mats to eat. Owl hesitated until Snake muttered a gruff "sit." After they'd both had a chance to get some food in their bellies, he said, "Let's go over the contingency plans." 

"Are there any?" Owl asked, taking a sip from her ginger beer. 

"A couple." Snake ate another bite of beans and rice before continuing. "Ocelot's meeting you at the Berlin airport. If anything looks wrong when you get there, anything suspicious, don't leave with him. Make a scene if you have to, but refuse to leave the airport and call Kaz." 

Owl snorted. "Who will have so much fun delivering his big, fat 'I told you so.'" 

"Kaz being an ass is better than you being dead or in enemy hands," Snake countered bluntly. "Ocelot always carried a knife on the inside of his left boot, and he usually had another at the small of his back. Make a grab for one of those if you get up in a fight. And if it comes down to guns? He's got twelve shots before the reload. You'll get a handful of seconds before he's ready to go again. Make them count." 

Owl was looking at him incredulously. "You really think I stand a chance if he's to the point of shooting at me?" 

Snake shrugged. "Not really. You're best bet is to go along with whatever he says and wait for me to extract you. But maybe you end up in a situation where it's not you he's shooting at." 

She made a sound of agreement. "Guess it's good to know." She tore up pieces of a tortilla into smaller and smaller bits. "You honestly think I'm going to need to know this stuff?" 

"Honestly?" Snake huffed. "I think you'll come back with some new intel and a burning desire to never hear anyone sing 'The Streets of Laredo' ever again." He paused to scratch at his beard. "Speaking of intel, see what you can find out about Ocelot and a woman named Eva. Don't ask about her or anything, just keep your eyes out." 

"Noted. Any other requests?" 

"Zero, of course. The rest is up to you." 

Owl nodded, still picking at her food. Snake frowned; she'd eaten barely a third of it. "One day, you're gonna learn that you've got to eat when you can," he chided. 

Her mouth twisted into something like a smile. "I'm afraid my fight-or-flight response is still too well-developed to eat like you." 

"You can back out if you want. Ocelot'll be pissy, but he'll get over it." 

Owl shook her head. "The intel is too good to pass up." She stopped even pretending to eat, setting the plate aside. "Ocelot said he thinks one of his targets has been in contact with Friend." 

Snake nodded slowly; he figured it had to be something like that to convince Owl to take this job. The silence between them stretched out until it was broken by Kaz's clipped steps across the hard floor. Owl jumped up almost immediately, gathering the scattered remnants of her meal before grabbing for Snake's mess as well. "We done, boss?" she asked nonchalantly. 

Her body language made it all too clear that she was not interested in being in a room with him and Kaz at the moment, so Snake waved her away as he got to his feet. She muttered a hasty goodnight to Kaz as she rushed past him, and Kaz's eyes followed her out the door. "When is she leaving?" he asked. 

"1500 tomorrow. She'll fly San Jose to New York, New York to Hamburg, and Hamburg to West Berlin." 

"All her papers in order?" 

Snake shrugged. "You got them; you should know." 

Kaz scowled a little. "I didn't know," he bit out, "if they were going to work for her little trip to the USSR." 

"Ocelot's taking care of that. We just have to get her to Germany." 

"When is she due back?" 

"Arrives back in San Jose at 2030 on January 30." 

"And the contingency plans?" 

"Stay by your phone when her flight arrives in West Berlin. She'll call if there's a problem." Snake frowned thoughtfully. "I suppose we could start placing some intel operatives at Ocelot's most likely bolt holes, but I don't think we need to worry unless she's not back on time." He looked Kaz over, watching his mouth work for a moment like he had something on the tip of his tongue. Snake just waited patiently, ignoring the Boss's voice in the back of his head, reminding himself that he wasn't listening to her anymore. Eventually, with a light sigh, Kaz said, "Alright, boss." 

"'Alright, boss?'" Snake repeated. "That it?" 

Kaz's scowl deepened. "What do you want me to say? That I'm still pissed? That I think this is a mistake?" He snorted. "Fine, I'm pissed and I think this is a mistake. But you're the boss." 

Snake felt a predatory grin start up around the corners of his mouth. It was an odd manifestation of the relief that washed the acid from his belly, but there was something _exciting_ about Kaz grudgingly admitting his superiority. "You wanna work out some of that anger?" he asked, slouching down a little and bringing his hands up in loose fists. Kaz stared at him in disbelief. "C'mon, Kaz," Snake cajoled. "Make me pay." 

"We both know I'm going to be paying the higher price," Kaz said levelly, but he loosened his yellow scarf and took off his aviators, dropping both near the wall. 

"Maybe," Snake countered, "but you'll feel better after." Kaz spent too much time behind a desk; a good fight would remind him he was alive. Hell, Snake even let Kaz get a free shot in before he got serious, a left hook across his jaw that he didn't bother to dodge. 

They traded blows, the gym filled with the sound of flesh pounding sweaty flesh. Snake pinned Kaz once only to have the younger man slither out of his grasp, landing a sharp kick to the back of his head in the process. He let it go on until Kaz started to grin again, flying high on punch drunk happiness and endorphins, then he wrestled his XO to the ground again, tightening his arms around Kaz's neck and grinding his half-hard cock against his ass. Kaz breathed harshly then tried to simultaneously yank on Snake's hair and sweep Snake's leg, but Snake just clamped down harder on his windpipe in warning. "Who's the boss here, Kaz?" he growled into Kaz's ear. 

A shiver ran through the other man and the tiniest of groans escaped his lips. "You are, Snake," he whispered, hips thrusting back impulsively. 

"And what do you want from me?" Snake drawled, flicking the tip of his tongue along Kaz's neck to taste the salt that had gathered there. 

"I want you to fuck me, boss," Kaz answered in a surprisingly level tone, the voice of a man who had no qualms about his desires and no worries that those desires would go unfulfilled. 

Of course, Snake was only too happy to oblige. 


	9. Chapter 9

The woman who got off the plan in West Berlin _looked_ healthier than the one Ocelot had dropped off weeks earlier. Her hair had grown and her cheeks had filled out. He smiled when her eyes found his face and reached out a hand for her travel bag as she approached. "I've got a car outside," he said in English, offering her his other arm. "How was the flight?" 

"The flight from Hamburg was fine," she answered, slipping her hand into the crook of his elbow and looking up into his face, dragging her feet as he tried to move her toward the exit. "The flight to Hamburg was long and cramped, and I'm not looking forward to the return trip." 

Ocelot frowned. She did look tired; there was a tight furrow in the center of her forehead. "You up for more travelling today?" he asked. 

"As long as you let me stare aimlessly out the window the whole time." 

Ocelot had more questions, but they could wait until they reached the car. Owl didn't offer anything more, but at some point she seemed to stop her examination of him and quicken her pace, and they proceeded through the airport in silence. Once they were safely in the privacy of the car, Ocelot turned to Owl in the passenger seat. "I don't want to try to cross the border if there's any chance of trouble." 

Owl was rubbing her temples, eyes closed. "It's fine," she said. "It's just… that was my first commercial flight since Friend, and I wasn't prepared. I'm tired, I'm a little nauseated, but the sooner we're in the middle of nowhere, the better." She looked up at him. "So what's the plan?" 

Ocelot held her eyes for a moment, then reached across her to open the glove box and pull out some forms. "You are a member of the Socialist Party from Toronto here for an exchange program. You know enough Marxist theory to pull it off if questioned." 

"Exchange program?" 

Ocelot waved his hand. "Trying to build sympathy in the West among those who share similar political ideologies. KGB and GRU both use it as a front to bring Westerners into the country." He shrugged. "It's not important. What's important is that you answer to Stephanie Atene, same as your passport; that you're Canadian, same as your passport; that you're excited to learn more about Marxist-Leninist praxis; and that you don't call me Ocelot. I'm Comrade Bahktinovich." 

Owl nodded. 

"After we get through the checkpoint, it's another short flight to Moscow," Ocelot went on. "I have another vehicle waiting for us at the airport there. We should get to the cabin I rented before midnight, so long as the weather cooperates." 

It was then that Ocelot noticed that Owl was shivering; she was wearing a wool sweater but it apparently wasn't enough. He frowned. "The coat I have for you is in Moscow." 

"It's fine," she answered. "I won't need it on the plane." 

Still, Ocelot cranked up the heat in the car as they made their way through the Berlin streets. Things at the checkpoint went exactly as they were supposed to; Owl managed to shake off her fatigue long enough to look bright and eager, but the soldiers who looked over her papers and did a cursory check of the trunk of the car didn't bat an eye. Somewhere there would be a record of Major Bahktinovich moving a Westerner into the country, but only a handful of people knew Bahktinovich was Ocelot. 

Owl did seem genuinely interested in looking around East Berlin, and they had some time before their flight, so Ocelot took a leisurely route to the airport. He tried to imagine seeing the city through new eyes, eyes that didn't glide over the bullet-pocked facades or barbed wire. He snorted, thinking about how many kids would grow up thinking barbed wire was normal, just like he did. 

"This your first time behind the Iron Curtain?" he asked to distract himself from thoughts of his childhood. 

"Yeah," Owl answered. 

"What do you think?" 

"I don't know." 

Ocelot glanced at her, but she was still watching out the window. "What? No remarks about how scared and unhappy everyone looks?" 

"I can see that not everyone is scared or unhappy." She turned to look at him. "What do you want me to say? It doesn't look like 'The West'? Sometimes the West doesn't look like 'The West.'" She hunkered down in her seat and stared out the windshield, looking more than a little grumpy. "I bet if we drove out of town a ways, we'd find placed that look way more like my hometown than my hometown looks like 'The West.' And does 'The West' mean the States or western Europe? Because those are two totally different things…" 

"Forgive me," Ocelot cut her off. "I've gotten too used to Americans talking about how sad things look." 

"I'm not American anymore," Owl answered flippantly. "I'm Canadian." 

Ocelot rolled his eyes at her and they made the rest of the drive in silence. As he parked the car at the airport, Ocelot asked again, "You're sure you're ready for this?" 

She frowned. "Why? Is something wrong?" 

"Nothing's wrong," he said. "I just can't have you blowing both our covers because you're stuck with too many people on an airplane." 

Her face was stone as she said, "You just worry about getting my gear through customs." 

He grinned at her. "Promised I would, didn't I?" He gestured nonchalantly at the passenger side door. "If you'd be so kind…" 

But worry continued to buzz around Ocelot's head as he and Owl purchased tickets and made their way through the terminal. He hadn't been privy to Orbweaver's files since her early field tests -- the real ones, not the fake ones Poe had arranged to scare her into compliance. He knew she'd been doing mole-hunting for MSF, but didn't know much about the operations themselves. In short, he knew that her abilities worked just fine, and that Snake deemed her physically capable of being in the field, but he knew nothing about her mental health, and her earlier comments suggested the trip was already taking a toll. _Well_ , he thought as they took seats at their gate, _if she has a meltdown here, jetlag and culture shock can be used to cover a lot of odd behavior._ And mostly, Owl looked tired, eyes gazing unfocused at the floor when they were open at all. 

"Is there going to be food on this flight?" she asked suddenly, without looking up. 

"No," he answered. "You hungry?" 

"Yeah." 

"Stay put," he said, getting up. "I'll find us something." 

He was back in a few minutes with sandwiches and two bottles of soda. "Eat fast," he told her as he handed her one of the sandwiches and a bottle. "We're boarding soon." 

Owl didn't need to be told twice, taking a huge bite. After the food was gone, she lingered over the soda. "A Coke knock-off?" she asked. 

"You think they'd sell that American filth here?" Ocelot returned. 

"There was a McDonald's in Hamburg that served sauerkraut," Owl went on. She shook her head. "I hadn't even seen a McDonald's in over a year and I got stuck with the sauerkraut one." 

"Did you really miss it?" he asked. 

"McDonald's specifically? No. Chocolate milkshakes? Yes." 

"You should have told Friend you weren't going to do another test until Poe brought back milkshakes." 

She laughed, and Ocelot felt mildly relieved. 

Ocelot let Owl take the window seat when they finally boarded -- he was more comfortable on the aisle anyway -- and busied himself with the customs forms that would exempt their luggage from inspection. When it really came down to it, no one cared what you brought into the country; even illegal Western goods destined for the black market had their purposes. Still, exploiting his military perks on this matter was part of his and Snake's agreement, and it really didn't hurt. 

Owl had her head back and eyes closed, but her breathing was too uneven for her to be asleep. Ocelot let her play possum and pulled a paperback from his coat pocket, content to pass the next couple hours with gunslingers and outlaws. 

  
<><><><><>   


Owl fell asleep somewhere during the third hour of the drive, and Ocelot felt a mild sense of relief. He had felt her gaze on the back of his head ever since she moved to the back seat — to stretch her legs, she'd said — and he wasn't sure if it was because she seemed to be done examining him or if it was because she was less likely to cause any trouble. 

He spent the next few hours listening to the current crop of VIAs on the radio and imagining what John would have asked Owl to find out about him. Definitely how he felt about Zero. Maybe the other Patriots as well, though Ocelot didn't get the feeling he gave any of them much thought nowadays. Too busy with his new blond to worry about the old one. 

Or maybe worried about the old one because of the new one. 

So maybe Ocelot would make a point of not thinking about Eva while Owl was with him. 

It was dark by the time he reached the address he'd been given over the phone, a ramshackled little cottage alongside what could barely pass as a road. Ocelot threw one last glance over his shoulder to see that Owl was still burrowed deep in her coat, breathing evenly, before he got out and crunched up the path to the porch. An old man with a salt-and-pepper beard and the distinct stench of hooch opened the door a crack at Ocelot's knock, glaring at him. "What do you want?" 

Ocelot smiled shyly, hat clasped in his hands. "I'm Vasily Peitrov," he said. "We spoke on the phone? About the cabin?" 

The man grinned widely, showing a row of rotting teeth. "The newlywed!" he bellowed, throwing the door open wider and clapping Ocelot on the shoulder. Ocelot made a point of stumbling under the hit, idiotic smile still plastered on his face as the acrid stink of body odor joined the sickly sweetness of the man's homemade alcohol. "You have brought the money, yes?" 

Ocelot fumbled in his pocket for the carefully constructed wad of bills, which the man counted once he'd snatched it out of Ocelot's hands. Satisfied, he reached down into his pocket to pull out an old-fashion key on a large ring, wiggling his eyebrows as he handed it over. "Where's the pretty young bride?" he asked, leering. 

"I-in the car." Ocelot gestured over his shoulder. "She's sleeping." He shrugged, ducking his head. "Tired after all the excitement." 

The old man chuckled darkly. "Well, you'll want her well-rested, won't you?" 

Ocelot played at embarrassment again, mumbled a hasty thanks, and headed back to the car. 

"Gorka!" the old man called behind him with another sneering laugh. 

Owl had kept her head down, but she was certainly awake at this point. "Everything's fine," Ocelot said softly as he settled back into his seat and put the car in reverse. "Just getting the key to our cabin." 

"You're irritated with that man," Owl replied, not bothering to comment on how he knew she was awake. "Why?" 

Ocelot snorted. "He's a dirty old bastard. Had some choice words about my supposed bride." 

Owl hummed in acknowledgement. "What time is it?" 

"A little after 2300." 

"How much longer?" 

"We'll get there before midnight." 

Ocelot drove farther along the not-road, bumping and jostling through recent snowfall. Everything around was white. The moon was full and bright, glinting off the drifts, and in the rear view mirror, Owl was gazing out the window, eyes and jaw slack with wonder. "Then what?" she asked, barely above a whisper. 

"We'll unpack the gear and sleep for a while," Ocelot answered, keeping his own voice low and level. "Tomorrow, we'll leave as soon as it's light, scope out our surveillance point." 

Owl took in a few deep breaths. "I don't think I've ever seen this much snow in my life," she said eventually. 

Ocelot chuckled. "No, I don't suppose you would have." Even with her few brief years in Michigan. 

The cabin was a squarish blotch settled against a hill with decent visibility. Ocelot made Owl wait in the car as he checked the interior. Not that he expected any surprises, but sloppiness killed. One room, just as advertised. Bathroom in one corner with a tiny tub, toilet, and sink. Another sink and small electric stove on one wall. Across the room, a fireplace, ashy with disuse, and in the middle, one bed. 

It would do just fine. 

Owl was out of the car quick when he waved for her to come in, hands buried deep in her coat pockets. He watched in amusement as she pushed through snow that came up to her knees, even on the path Ocelot had already cut, resorting to jumping into the holes his own steps had left behind. Retrieving the suitcases from the car, he came back in to find Owl worrying the light switch on the wall. "The lights don't work," she observed, but she said if flatly like she knew she was saying something obvious. 

"There's a generator out back. I'll start it up tomorrow when we need it." 

He found the cabin quite cozy, but Owl was shivering quietly but violently already, so he started building a fire after handing her a flashlight and telling her where to find linens to make the bed. "Normally, I'd be a gentleman and offer to sleep on the floor," he said as they worked on their respective tasks. "But it would look quite strange for a newly married man to be that far in the doghouse so soon, if anyone were to come looking." 

Owl hummed a noncommittal noise. "That man," she said, "he doesn't own this place, does he?" 

Ocelot huffed a little laugh. "Where do you think you are, capitalist?" 

He caught Owl's frown when he glanced over his shoulder. "I said 'doesn't'," she grumbled defensively. 

Ocelot opted not to satisfy her pique. "This cabin, like many others in the area, is state-owned," he explained magnanimously. "They're doled out for vacations, little rewards for the good little workers of whatever ministry has access to them. The man we met is in charge of upkeep and maintenance, and I paid him a bribe to turn a blind eye to us being here." 

"As newlyweds?" 

Ocelot shrugged. "It's not the first time he's been paid off by a couple looking for a few days to fuck in peace." He would know; this cabin was currently in possession of the GRU via the TASS. Nudging a target toward paying the bribe for one of these cabins, which would have been bugged in advance of course, was the kind of work they had incoming operatives cut their teeth on. 

Which made it all too easy to find the bugs that had been left here by someone hoping to catch the cabin's next scheduled occupant, a GRU colonel who apparently had enemies, with his pants down. Ocelot had left them in the trunk of the car for the time being; later, he'd replace them exactly as they were. 

Once they had a little more light, Ocelot nudged his smaller cases toward her. "Your clothes are in there. Put what you're wearing in your own bag." He turned his back to her as she considered the carefully curated collection of garments, pulling off coat and gloves and sweater and pants and leaving them in a haphazard heap over his larger case. When he was down to long underwear and telnyashka, he climbed in on one side of the bed, facing outward, which meant he had a clear view of Owl slinking into the dark bathroom with an armful of Soviet wool and silk. "Everything alright?" he drawled amiably. 

"Fine," she answered softly, but her stutter-step movements and the rattle of pills sold her out. 

_Oh little rabbit_ , Ocelot thought, _we're going to have to train that fear out of you before you get yourself gobbled up by monsters in the night._

  
<><><><><>   


Viktor Lenkov had brought his wife, which Ocelot had been expecting. So had Konstantin Nikulov, which he had not. Nikulov's mistress was a relatively open secret among GRU circles, largely due to the fact that he trotted her out any chance he got to be away from his wife. Of course, his companions on this particular trip didn't know he was GRU, so maybe he was just trying to keep his cover in tact by avoiding any deliberately ostentatious displays of rank. More likely he was worried that another guest would rat him out to someone in the party who actually cared about infidelity. Owl would probably be able to tell him who. 

The final two members of the party, Ursula Fedyaev and Pavel Ivashkin would be on each other every chance they got, if their shameless flirting was anything to go by. 

Lenkov's wife was a terrible skier and Nikulov's was not very good either, so even Owl, who approached snow the same way a younger Ocelot had approached having electrodes strapped to his head (with extreme trepidation), was having no trouble keeping up with the group as they bumbled their way along the trail. She kept a pair of binoculars in one hand and a tape recorder in the other, muttering her observations in a low tone with her mouth close to the mic. She either couldn't remember the names from the files he'd given her or didn't want to use them, because she called Fedyaev "Hot Girl" and Ivashkin "Dick Brain." 

Ocelot's masters at the GRU wanted to know if Nikulov was staying in the fold after being placed in the TASS. Ocelot's masters at the KGB wanted to know if one of the GRU's people at the TASS could be bought. Ocelot wanted to know why the hell a Philosopher's charm school alumna was trying to get in bed with the assistant to the Soviet ambassador to the U.S. 

That's what Fedyaev was, of course. Ocelot had recognized her as one of his counterparts from the moment he'd laid eyes on her. She was also a Soviet journalist; her coverage of the recent Vladivostok Summit Meeting for _Izvestia_ had been a masterpiece in the fine line between truth and propaganda. Supposedly, that was what had earned her this little trip, which was, on paper, a retreat for key figures on the media side of the upcoming Soyuz-Apollo Test Project, but Ivashkin, with his diplomatic placement, had also thrown some weight around. He was smitten; Ocelot's eyes at the Summit had said that Ivashkin had regularly gone out of his way to speak with the shapely brunette despite his duties to Dobrynin. 

Earlier that morning, before he and Owl had bundled up in their snow suits (and after Ocelot had slipped one of her pills in his pocket for further inspection at some later date), Owl had asked about Friend. "You said he's had contact with one of the targets," she pressed. 

Ocelot sighed longsufferingly over his bowl of oatmeal. "There's a rumor floating around that an American scientist has been asking the Soyuz teams about their research on neurobiology." 

Owl had glared at him. "So you decided that was enough of a bone to throw my way so I'll gnaw down to the marrow for you?" 

Ocelot shrugged. "There's another rumor that this American scientist is CIA-backed but has gone out of his way to not look like he's CIA-backed." 

Owl had dipped her head, rubbed furiously at the spot between her eyes before wiping her whole hand down her face. "Right. Okay. So Soyuz would mean this Viktor guy, right? OKB-1?" 

"Right in one." 

"And what else am I supposed to be looking for?" 

Ocelot stood, grabbing his dishes and hers as he went. "I don't want to influence your analysis," he answered sedately. 

Owl harrumphed. "You don't want to give me any intel I don't get myself." 

Ocelot grinned, even though she couldn't see it. "I can see why they gave you that scholarship. You're a sharp one." 

He wasn't surprised to hear Owl using "Viktor" in lieu of some other ridiculous name. 

He had no sense of Owl's methods, now that she was her own tool, so he tried not to read too much into her comments. Still, when she said things like, "Princeton" -- her name for Nikulov for whatever reason -- "is angry when Hot Chick laughs," he couldn't help but incorporate that into his own analysis of the situation. Perhaps Nikulov was suspicious of Fedyaev himself. Perhaps that was why he brought his wife (Owl had dubbed her Labbie) instead of his mistress. 

And if someone as idiotic as Nikulov was suspicious, Fedyaev wanted someone in the GRU to be taking a closer look at her. Was she trying to get recruited? Or was she try to throw that paranoia onto Ivashkin? 

This would be a lot easier if Ocelot could ask her these questions himself. 

The little skiing expedition only lasted an hour before Lenkov's wife insisted she was too tired to continue and the whole party returned home by a much more direct route. Once they entered their chalet, Owl and Ocelot faded back into the snow drifts, and Ocelot noticed how, when her eyes weren't glued to the binoculars, she kept them trained on her handler. He wondered if that was Poe's training or Snake's. He decided it didn't matter; it would probably keep her alive longer until she learned to handle herself. 

Back at their cabin, Owl crammed herself close to the banked fire with her tape recorder and headphones to listen back to her notes. Ocelot started the kettle again; Owl was trying to hide how badly she was shivering but it was a pathetically futile undertaking. When he handed her a cup of hot tea, she jerked off her headphones and said, "This would be a lot easier if you'd tell me exactly what you're looking for." 

He blinked placidly. "I told you before: I'm looking for hopes and dreams." 

She was not impressed. "And I'm telling you now: I'm looking for a needle in a haystack." 

He sighed, again longsuffering (let her think that she tried his patience; American women were so often eager to please). "How about you just tell me what kinds of things you noticed?" 

She shrugged in a way that was intended to convey nonchalance but that mostly conveyed her nervousness. "Where do you want me to start?" 

"Viktor." It was where she wanted to start, anyway. 

"Viktor," she repeated, closing her eyes and drawing in a deep breath. "He loves his wife. He doesn't care for Princeton — whatshisface — Nik-something—" 

"Nikulov," Ocelot supplied. "Why do you call him Princeton?" 

"He feels like everyone owes him something," she explained offhandedly, and this time the nonchalance wasn't feigned. This was something she really knew, knew so well it was old news. "Like one of those Ivy League grads who feels like having a fucking diploma means the whole world is supposed to bow down." 

"You realize that there is no equivalent in the Soviet Union to what you're describing," Ocelot replied, brow arched. 

"But the sense of self is the same," Owl countered without hesitation. "I couldn't tell you what makes him feel that way, but he's no good comrade." 

This was nothing Ocelot didn't know. Nikulov had been a member of Ocelot's Spetsnaz graduating class. "Viktor…" he prompted. 

"Right, well, Viktor doesn't like him, but I think it's mostly a personalities thing," she started again. "He spent most of his time either worrying about his wife--" 

"MizVik, yes?" Ocelot clarified. 

"Yeah, MizVik, or being grumpy at someone. The name was hard, but it's definitely a superior, but not someone that has much of a say over what Viktor does?" 

"Give the name a try." 

Owl furrowed her brows, pulled on her headphones, rewound her tape, played it, rewound again, play, fast forward, pressed her hands against her ears to hear her own voice… 

"Stephanie-chev?" she said finally, with some small amount of embarrassment. "I know I'm probably just seeing what's familiar…" 

"Stepanochev is a relatively common last name." It was also the name of one of the scientists at OKB-1, but there was no reason to tell Owl that. "Viktor felt grumpy toward him?" 

"Yeah," Owl said slowly, eyes drifting out of focus as they gazed into the fire that she had stoked back to life. "I think that maybe he thinks this Stepanochev has made a bad decision, or more than one. It's a new thing; if he thought his boss had been making bad decisions all along, there'd be more resentment." 

Ocelot hummed in acknowledgement. "That it?" 

Owl glared at him. "You had me chasing moving targets for barely an hour. Yes, that's it." 

"Fine, fine." He held up his hands in a placating gesture before leaning forward like a kid eager for a story. "Tell me what else you saw." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna go ahead and admit that most of what I know about Cold War espionage, I learned from John LeCarre novels.


End file.
